Enabling Soft Frequency Reuse and Stienen's Cell Partition in Two-Tier Heterogeneous Networks: Cell Deployment and Coverage Analysis

Heterogeneous cellular networks (HetNets) are one of the key enabling technologies for fifth generation (5 G) networks. In HetNets, the use of small base stations (SBSs) inside the coverage area of a macro base station (MBS) offers higher throughput and improved coverage. However, such multi-tier base station deployment introduces new challenges, e.g., (i) All users experience significant inter-cell interference (ICI) due to frequency reuse, (ii) SBS associated users experience severe MBS-interference due to higher MBS transmit power, and (iii) MBS coverage edge users receive lower signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) due to longer distances. To address the aforementioned challenges, this wor…