On Scheduling and Interference Coordination Policies for Multicell OFDMA Networks

Abstract

Abstract. In orthogonal frequency division multiple access systems there is an intimate relationship between the packet scheduler and the inter-cell interference coordination (ICIC) functionalities: they determine the set of frequency channels (sub-carriers) that are used to carry the packets of in-progress sessions. In this paper we build on previous work -in which we compared the so called random and coordinated ICIC policies -and analyze three packet scheduling methods. The performance measures of interest are the session blocking probabilities and the overall throughput. We find that the performance of the so-called Fifty-Fifty and What-It-Wants scheduling policies is improved by coordinated sub-carrier allocation, especially in poor signal-to-noise-and-interference situations. The performance of the All-Or-Nothing scheduler is practically insensitive to the choice of the sub-carrier allocation policy.