Performance and Cost Evaluation of Fixed Relay Nodes in Future Wide Area Cellular Networks

• Published in: 2007 IEEE 18th International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications pp. 1 - 5
• Main Authors: Moberg, P., Skillermark, P., Johansson, N., Furuskar, A.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 2007
• Subjects: Base stations; Costs; Femtocell networks; Intelligent networks; Land mobile radio; Land mobile radio cellular systems; Mobile communication; Radio network; Relays; Traffic control
• ISBN: 9781424411436; 1424411432
• ISSN: 2166-9570
• DOI: 10.1109/PIMRC.2007.4394388

Future cellular networks are expected to provide significantly higher capacity than today's systems. This might require a denser access point deployment, with a potential increase in network deployment cost as a consequence. A promising way to reduce cost is a multi-hop deployment where wireless relay nodes (RN) are introduced to enhance capacity and coverage. In this paper, a deployment procedure for a static radio environment is considered, adding RNs incrementally as a complement to initially deployed macro base stations (BS). Different strategies of deploying BSs and RNs, providing equal service levels, are analyzed from a cost perspective. We develop a methodology that can determine and compare the most cost efficient deployment mixes of BSs and RNs. Further, we compare a deployment of macro BSs and relays with a deployment of macro BSs and micro BSs. Results show that relays are more cost efficient if the micro BS cost is between 10 and 15 % higher compared to the cost of an RN.