Expanding cellular coverage via cell-edge deployment in heterogeneous networks: Spectral efficiency and backhaul power consumption perspectives

Heterogeneous small-cell networks (HetNets) are considered to be a standard part of future mobile networks where operator/consumer deployed small-cells, such as femto-cells, relays, and distributed antennas (DAs), complement the existing macrocell infrastructure. This article proposes the need-oriented deployment of small-cells and device-to-device (D2D) communication around the edge of the macrocell such that the small-cell base stations (SBSs) and D2D communication serve the cell-edge mobile users, thereby expanding the network coverage and capacity. In this context, we present competitive network configurations, namely, femto-on-edge, DA-one-dge, relay-on-edge, and D2D-communication on- edge, where femto base stations, DA elements, relay base stations, and D2D communication, respectively, are deployed around the edge of the macrocell. The proposed deployments ensure performance gains in the network in terms of spectral efficiency and power consumption by facilitating the cell-edge mobile users with small-cells and D2D communication. In order to calibrate the impact of power consumption on system performance and network topology, this article discusses the detailed breakdown of the end-to-end power consumption, which includes backhaul, access, and aggregation network power consumptions. Several comparative simulation results quantify the improvements in spectral efficiency and power consumption of the D2D-communication-on-edge configuration to establish a greener network over the other competitive configurations.