Fixed Relays for Cost Efficient 4G Network Deployments: An Evaluation

The paper provides a qualitative performance assessment of relay based deployment concepts in comparison to single-hop deployment. The results in this paper prove the general assumption that the deployment of relay nodes (RNs) provide a strong opportunity to reduce the network deployment cost substantially. It is shown how low power RNs have to be applied in cellular scenarios with high power base stations (BSs) and what cost benefits can be expected. The qualitative results show that the low power relays do have the potential to decrease the deployment cost. It is further shown that a parallelization of the relay link between the RNs and the serving BS will help to improve the cost efficiency of the relay based deployment concept.