Downlink femto-macro ICIC with location-based long-term power setting

Inter-cell interference is a major issue in current wireless cellular systems, in particular with the development of femto-cells. Efficient macro-femto inter-cell interference coordination (ICIC) is crucial and should be performed with minimum communication between macro and femto base stations. We propose an ICIC approach, in which each femto base station informs a server about its position, obtains relevant information from mobile terminal measurements stored in a database maintained by the server and configures its transmission power according to this information. This power setting aims at maintaining a controlled impact of the femto base station on macro-cell performance, independent of the femto-cell location. In a 3GPP-LTE context, this approach exhibits a good femto-macro performance trade-off and is robust against power and positioning measurement errors.