The Hype and Reality of Small Cells Performance

Heterogeneous networks (HetNets) consist of large (macro) cells with high transmit power (typically 5 W – 40 W) and small cells with low transmit power (typically 100 mW – 2 W). The small cells are distributed beneath the large cells and can run on the same frequency as the large cell (co-channel), or on a different frequency. As an evolution of the cellular architecture, HetNets and small cells have gained much attention as a technique to increase mobile network capacity and are today one of the hot topics in the wireless industry. Many of the initial deployments of small cells are of the co-channel type. Standards such as LTE have focused on incorporating techniques to improve the performance of co-channel deployments in earlier releases of the technology standard leaving the handling of multi-frequency deployment type to later releases. In all, operators today have multiple options of small cell deployment scenarios, operational techniques and technology roadmaps to choose from.