Bounding the Maximum Common Rate Achievable in a Coordinated Network
01 January 2006
We analyze the ultimate performance limits of inter-cell coordination in a cellular downlink net-work operating under per base power constraints. In a previous study of the network investigated, the solution to the max-min rate problem for a particular zero-forcing dirty paper coding scheme gave an achievable max-min rate which served as a lower bound on the ultimate limit. Here, we obtain simple upper bounds on the max-min rate of any scheme, and show that the rate achievable by the zero-forcing dirty paper coding method is close to the sharpest upper bound obtained. We also extend our analysis to coordinated networks with multiple antennas, and compute an upper bound for that case as well.