Interference Analysis for mm-Wave Picocells

Millimeter (mm) wave picocellular networks are a promising approach for delivering the 1000-fold capacity increase required to keep up with projected demand for wireless data: the available bandwidth is orders of magnitude larger than that in existing cellular systems, and the small carrier wavelength enables the realization of highly directive antenna arrays in compact form factor, thus drastically increasing spatial reuse. In this paper, we carry out an interference analysis for mm wave picocells in an urban canyon, accounting for the geometry associated with the sparse multipath characteristic of this band. While we make some modeling simplifications, our analysis provides a strong indication of the very large capacity, of the order of Terabits/sec per km, provided by such networks, using system bandwidths of the order of a few GHz.