Distributed Subband, Rate and Power Allocation in OFDMA based Two-Tier Femtocell Networks Using Fractional Frequency Reuse

Femtocell has appeared as a solution to increase both coverage and capacity of cellular networks. However, interference problem between the macrocell and the femtocell must be solved before any deployment. In this paper, we deal with the problem of joint subband, rate, and power allocation in OFDMA based two-tier femtocell networks. It is assumed that for macrocell users, spectrum allocation is accomplished through Fractional Frequency Reuse (FFR). Our objective is to maximize the femtocell user's throughput while maintaining as little as possible reduction in the macrocell users' performance. Our proposed algorithm is decentralized, and needs to be done only when femtocell access point is plugged in, based on some measurements. Simulation results show superior performance of the proposed scheme compared to the other methods.