Deploying High Capacity Dense Small Cell Heterogeneous Networks

Along with increased spectrum efficiency, spectrum bandwidth expansion and traffic offloading through WiFi, small cell deployment is regarded as one of the most promising ways to meet the use of broadband mobile service in both outdoor and in particular indoor scenarios in the next decade. The deployment of small cells in a macrocell coverage area leads to a multi-tier heterogeneous network (HetNet), in which a mix of access node types, such as macrocell, femtocell and relay, will co-exist. Despite the current research and development on small cell/HetNet from both industry and academia, there are still many challenges to be addressed and questions to be answered for successful small cell and HetNet deployment. These challenges range from the lack of fundamental understanding of HetNet network capacity to the need of Radio Access Network (RAN) Planning and Optimisation (PO) tool for HetNet deployment involving both indoor and outdoor scenarios.