Interference Coordination Schemes for Wireless Mobile Advanced Systems: A Survey

Mobile communication networks have witnessed a perpetual evolution since their launching as voice only networks. In the few past years, the focus was addressed to high data rate networks that offer high quality of service. The lately released LTE-Advanced network was the first to completely fulfill 4G requirements. However, performance gains remain limited due to severe interference levels. This paper is a survey upon the evolution of interference mitigation solutions from Release 8 to Release 11. This problem was addressed since earlier releases by coordinating transmission/reception among different cells. Many enhancements were then carried out by each subsequent specification. The originality of this work resides on the comparison between the different schemes and the perspective of developing a new interference coordination method available for 4G and beyond systems with small cells deployment. Several similarities are noted and differences on performance impact are highlighted.