Measurement and Analysis of Small Cell Splitting in a Real-world LTE-A HetNet

Network densification is an important topic which has been studied during the past decades in the 4G heterogeneous networks (HetNets). Deployment of small cells and cell-splitting technique are aimed to increase network capacity, cell coverage, and total cell throughput in HetNets. However, most published literature is about theoretical analysis. In this paper, extensive measurements are conducted in a real-world LTE-A HetNet environment. The cell-splitting strategy is applied in a real-world LTE-A HetNet. Four directional antennas operate as one cell and two cells respectively in an indoor gymnasium in the University of Regina. Optimization techniques such as ABS (Almost Blank Subframe) are utilized to mitigate interference and increase UE (user equipment) SINR inside the gymnasium. Users' (both static users and moving users) average SINR and system cell throughput are used to evaluate the performance of the tests. Our results show that operating the small cells from one cell to three cells for the whole building, the SINR inside the gymnasium decreased from 29 dB to 5 dB, and cell throughput decreased from 140 Mbps to 88Mbps. Even though the throughput performance of cells inside the gymnasium is slightly lowered, the overall network capacity of the building is enhanced.