Performance aspects of LTE uplink with variable load and bursty data traffic

This paper focuses on the performance evaluation of LTE uplink in presence of bursty data traffic. First, the performance of different power control (PC) strategies in different load conditions is evaluated. It is shown that the optimal PV policy depends on the load in the network and/or in the own cell. Simulation results demonstrate that in low load conditions applying no PC (or alternatively using fractional PC) can provide significant gains compared to full compensation PC. The gain is achieved both in terms of average and percentile user throughput performance. However, when also considering medium-to-high load conditions fractional PC can guarantee the best trade-off between peak data rates and cell edge performance. Finally, the performance of LTE uplink when assuming different system bandwidths and Rx antenna configurations is evaluated as a function of the network load. In general, larger system bandwidths can guarantee higher peak data rates, while increasing the number of Rx antenna elements is especially beneficial for cell-edge performance.