Implications of Fairness Criteria on the Techno-Economic Viability of Relaying Networks

The introduction of relaying techniques into cellular networks is expected to reduce the total infrastructure cost, especially when coverage extension is sought. With the advent of networks such as LTE, guaranteeing high data-rate coverage may become a challenge even for incumbent operators which nowadays provide full coverage for voice service. However it is not straightforward that operators will be able (or want) to guarantee coverage for the high data-rates. In this paper we study how the techno-economic viability of the relaying solution depends on the type of service to be provided by the operator. We exemplify the trade off between coverage and system throughput with two fairness criteria: perfect fairness (coverage guarantee) and proportional fairness. We show that relays provide advantages when the operator is interested in providing bit-rate/QoS guarantees. When maximizing the system throughput or cell capacity, relays are of less value.