Interference management in cellular system design

Cellular radio systems are a sophisticated application of trunked mobile radio technology in which the range of the base station transmitters are interference limited from co-channel reuse of frequencies instead of being noise limited. Accordingly, effective design of these systems requires an understanding of co-channel interference and its impact on coverage range as the cellular system designer must "manage" interference rather than avoid it. This paper develops a statistical method for determining the coverage range of transmitters in a mobile system, both in the absence and presence of co-channel interference. Two basic methods are examined and compared for defining and determining the reliability of reception in cellular systems--namely, the probability of reception along a contour boundary and the average probability of reception within a contour. The basic 12-cell and 7-cell omnidirectional systems are analyzed under both methods. Examples are presented that enable a quantitative comparison of these two basic methods and associated design criteria.