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Mofeh EI- Gend, Esam Sourour
Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt, Mofeh_Elgendy@yahoo.com
Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt, Sourour@ieee.org
B5TRACT
Femtocells are a promising solution for the provision of high indoor coverage and capacity. Furthermore,
OFDMA-based femtocells have proven to be highly versatile when dealing with cross-layer co-channel
interference; however, concers still exist related to the impact of the different access methods to femtocells in an
overlaid network. .Femtocells based on a Closed Subscribers group, where only device owners are allowed to
connect, introduce severe interference to microcells' users. On the other hand, Open Access femtocells where any
user can connect, does not bring may advantages to the femtocell owner [1]. H this paper, a study of the two
types of access methods (Closed & Open Access) is proposed and a discussion of how to overcome their
drawbacks by using the Hybrid access method is presented, which allows all users to connect but under
restrictions. The performance of the model is evaluated throughout system level simulations and it is shown that
Hybrid access contributes to seriously improve the performance of the whole network.
01W0r05LTE, Access methods, Femtocell, Downlink.
. NTRODUCTON
Long Term Evolution (LTE) is considered as one of the most suitable technologies for the fure deployment
of cellular networks, thanks to its capability to support high QoS (Quality of Service) and data rates. On the other
hand, femtocells ae low-cost and low-power cellular home base stations that connect mobile users to a network
operator by means of a broad band backhaul [2].Femtocells are a good solution for managing the exponential
growth of the trafc within the macro-cells and for improving indoor coverage, as show in Fig.I.
BU
o
L

6U
2U
2UUB 2UU9 2UJU 2UJJ 2UJ2
YCI$
Fig. 1 : Forecast: number of units (data extracted fom Research [3])
Since femtocells are paid by the end users, they will also reduce the overall cost of the network deployment for
the operators. L TE femtocells have been pointed as a good approach for the fture deployment of wireless broad
band indoor solutions. However, several aspects of this new technology such as the access method, mobility
management and resource allocation (fequency and power) still need frther investigation before femtocells
become widely deployed. When deploying a femtocell network, the access method, which refers to the rights of
the users when making use of the femtocells, needs to be defned.
The main strategies for femtocell access have been proposed:
Open Access where all the users can access all the femtocells of a given operator.
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- Closed Access where only the subscriber of the femtocell and a list of invited users can access a given
femtocell.
-Hybrid Access where a limited amount of the femtocell resources are available to all users, while the rest are
operated in a CSG maner [4].
The outline of the paper is as follows. Access methods are introduced in Section II, The propagation model is
described in Section III, the adaptive modulation and coding is discussed in Section IV, the simulation procedure
is discussed in section V, and the simulation results ae shown in section VI. Finally the conclusions are discussed
in section VII.
.CCE55ETHOD5
In order to describe the access methods procedures, it is important to note that in a two tier network, users can
be classifed into two categories, depending on the connectivity rights that they are given:
- A subscriber of a femtocell is a user registered in it. Subscribers are thus defned as the rightfl users of the
femtocell, and they ae usually mobile terminals of the femtocell owner and close family or fiends.
- A non-subscriber is a user not registered in the femtocell.
In the following, the access methods procedures to femtocells are described in terms of this classifcation [5].
Closed access:
In closed access, only the femtocell subscribers are allowed to connect to the femtocells , non subscribers ae
not allowed to connect to the network through a femtocell , even if its signal is stronger than the one of the
closest macro-cell, therefore a strong component of cross tier interference exists between both tiers , e.g. ,
femtocells could ja the downlink communication of passing non subscribers connected to a fa macro-cell ,ad
non-subscribers located close to a femtocell could jam the femtocell uplink. Co-tier interference also comes up
between neighbouring femtocells in dense deployments. In many cases, users will install their femtocells in
radom positions within their homes, e.g. close to a room of a neighbour or close to a window .This case,
subscribers will be some times severely jed by neighbouring femtocells, thus being unable to connect.
Therefore, solutions are required to reduce both cross-tier and co-tier interference, allowing the deployment of a
large number of femtocells within the existing networks. Interference cancellation and avoidance techniques for
femtocell networks are hence currently an important research topic .In order to guarantee femtocell connectivity
and mitigate interference [4].
Open Access:
In open access, all users (subscribers and non-subscribers) are allowed to connect and there is no distinction
between these two groups, and they ae just referred here as users. The use of open F APs at home would reduce
the interference problems caused by CSG F APs. Indeed, all passing users would be authorized to connect to any
femtocell, reducing thus the negative impact of the femtocell tier on the macro-cell network. In this case, the users
are always connected to the strongest server (either macro or femto), avoiding cross-tier interference. As a result,
the overall throughput of the network increases, frthermore, open access F APs allow different types of
deployments. Inside homes, this type of F AP will be deployed in random locations, being self-organization is a
good solution to minimize the negative impact of femtocells on to other cells. On the other hand, when
deployments are done by an operator, interference can be mitigated throughout network planning and
optimization. The location, power and fequencies assigned to each femtocell can in this case be planned in
advance. Nevertheless, open access has some drawbacks as well. It reduces the performance of the femtocell
owner due to the shaing of the femtocell resources with non-subscribers. Moreover, open access increases
substantially the amount of handovers between cells due to the movement of outdoor users. Users moving in a
residential area will hand over fom one femtocell to another or to the umbrella macro-cell. This will have a
negative impact in the operator because the signalling in the network increases and also the probabilit of calls
being dropped due to failure in the handover process. Furthermore, the chances for handover failure increase if the
femtocell neighbouring list is not properly confgured and updated. Regadless of this, diferent solutions have
been proposed in which a centric sensing of the radio channel is used as a mean to obtain parameters about the
surrounding environment and to update the femtocell neighbouring list [5].
Hybrid Access:
Access control mechanisms have a direct effect on interference, ad their features must hence be careflly
analyzed. As seen in the previous sections, all access methods suffer fom advantages and drawbacks. In order to
overcome those drawbacks, intermediate approaches are currently under research. Hybrid access methods can be
seen as a tradeoff between open and closed approaches, and reach a compromise between the impact on the
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performance of subscribers and the level of access that is grated to non-subscribers. Therefore, the number of
shared resources must be careflly tuned to avoid a large impact in the quality of service of the Femtocell
customers; otherwise, subscribers might feel that they are paying for a service that is to be exploited by others.
The impact to subscribers must thus be minimized in terms of performance or via economic advantages.
. ROPAGATONODE
The radio links between the Base stations and the users are divided into outdoor, indoor, and outdoor-to
indoor links according to the radio environment. The propagation loss L caused by slow fading at the downlink is
modeled based on an lTV path loss model [6]:
Indoor link (Subscribers --F AP)
J I0'd' 'I0`

Outdoor link (non-subscribers --Macrocell BS)

! Iu

;'
I
,
`

Iuuu
Outdoor-to-indoor link (non-subscribers--FAP, Subscribers --Macrocell BS)
! Iu

;'
I
,

I
,

Iuuu
(1)
(2)
(3)
Where PL, d, and f are the building wall penetration loss (dB), the amount of transmitter receiver separation
(m), and the fequency (MHz), respectively. S represents log-normal shadowing with a standard deviation of 8 dB.
. DAPTVEODUATONANDLODNG
Adaptive modulation and coding (AMC) has been proposed in most of the current wireless standards to
archive higher system capacity, adaptive modulation is used for maximizing the data throughput of the sub
carriers that are allocated to the users. This is based on the SINR measurements of each sub-carrier followed by
the application of the modulation scheme that maximizes the spectral efciency while at the same time
maintaining an acceptable BER. The VE uses the CQI (Chanel Quality Information) to tell the network of the
highest data rate it can accept. Based on this information, the scheduler chooses a coding and modulation format
for the next TTl (Transmission Time Interval) that would work better in poor conditions [7], The Downlink SINR
requirements are shown in Table 1. Where implementation margin (1M) is included to account for the difference
in SINR requirement between theory and practicable implementation [8], ad the downlink bit rates (Mbps) for
L TE according to the AMC used and the channel bandwidth are shown in Table 2 [9].
Modulation
QPSK
16QAM
64QAM
AMC 1.6 MHz
QPSK 112 0.8
16 QAM 112 1.5
16 QAM3/4 2.3
64 QAM3/4 3.5
a e own U 1 bl 1 D r k SIR R
Coding
112
112
3/4
3/4
eqUirements
a e own U .pe It rates 1 bl 2 D r k mb (Mb ) 'ps.
3.0 MHz 5.0 MHz 10 MHz
2.2 3.7 7.4
4.4 7.4 14.9
6.6 11.1 22.3
9.9 16.6 33.5
SINR+IM (dB)
4.5
lO.9
14.3
21.5
15 MHz 20 MHz
11.2 14.9
22.4 29.9
33.6 44.8
50.4 67.2
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. bMUATONROCEDURE5
The proposed access method is to be tested in a residential area, which is randomly placed within the central
cell of a seven cells network, with 3 buildings, which contain femtocells; each building contains 20 simultaneous
subscribers with the right for making use of the femtocell resources. A number of simultaneous outdoor users ae
distributed randomly across the street and these ae called non-subscribers, as shown in fg.2.
The network operates at a centre fequency of 3.5 GHz, Both the Macro ad the femto base stations share the
same bandwidth. The macro-cell downlink transmit power is set such that the received signal to noise ratio at the
cell edge is 20 dB, simulations is made for bandwidths of 10 MHz (50 Resource Blocks) and 15 MHz (75
Resource Blocks).
` `
` `
` `
emtOce|lS
5ubScr|berS&

nOn-SubScr|berS 0^
_

z-
. _` - _

`
Fig.2. Snapshot ofthe simulation
Case (1) Closed Access: Only subscribers ae allowed to connect to Femtocells, whereas non-subscribers are
connected to Macrocells. The relations between the throughput and Outage due to SINR and lack of resources, for
both the subscribers and non-subscribers, and the number of non-subscribers are discussed to show the benefts
and drawbacks of the closed access method.
Case (2) Open Access: Both subscribers ad non-subscribers are equally allowed to connect to Femtocells, the
rest of non-subscribers are then allowed to connect to Macrocells. The relations between the throughput and
Outage due to SINR and lack of resources, for both the subscribers and non-subscribers, and the number of non
subscribers are discussed to show the drawbacks of the open access method.
Case (3) Hybrid Access: A part of the Resources of the Femtocells, referred to as n, is reserved for the non
subscribers, the rest of non-subscribers are then allowed to connect to Macrocells. The rest of the Resources
reserved for subscribers.
Matlab system level simulation is made. The location of the street is randomly chosen by the program, and so
the locations of the non-subscribers in the street and the subscribers within the buildings.
Using the propagation loss model, losses between mobile users and base stations are calculated according to
the distance.
Signal to interference and noise ratio (SINR) is calculated for each mobile user, and so modulation technique,
coding rate and throughput are calculated.
In the closed access method case, each of the 60 subscribers connects to its own F AP, while non-subscribers
tries to connect to the nearest macro base station, those non-subscribers who aren't able to connect to the macro
base station because it is flly occupied are considered outage due to lack of resources.
In the Open access method case, each of the 60 subscribers and the non-subscribers tries to connect to nearest
FAP, when the FAP is flly occupied non-subscribers try to connect to the nearest macro base station, those
subscribers ad non-subscribers who aren't able to connect to the network because it is flly occupied ae
considered outage due to lack of resources.
In the Hybrid access method case, a portion of the resources of each FAP (n) is reserved for non-subscribers
while the rest of the resources are reserved for the subscribers. the 60 subscribers and the 150 non-subscribers try
to connect to nearest F AP, when the F AP is flly occupied non -subscribers try to connect to the nearest macro
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base station, those subscribers and non-subscribers who aren't able to connect to the network because it is flly
occupied are considered outage due to lack of resources.
For all the three mentioned cases there is another reason for outage which is the SINR: when resources have
already been assigned to the mobile user, but it cannot connect to the network due to its low SINR resulting fom
poor signal (ad/or) high interference.
Relations between the throughput and Outage due to SINR and lack of resources for both the subscribers ,
non-subscribers and the overall, and n are discussed to show how far the hybrid access methods afects the
drawbacks and the benefts of both the two other methods.
. bMUATONH5UT5
A study of the dawbacks of each case ad their solution using Hybrid access method is proposed.
Case (1): It has been noticed that:

From fg.3.1, both the throughput per non-subscriber (Summation of the throughputs for all non
subscribers divided by the number of non-subscribers) ad the overall throughput per user
(Summation of the throughputs for all users divided by the total number users) decrease as the
number of non-subscribers increases for both bandwidths (10MHz, 15MHz).

From fg.3.2, both the total percentage outage (due to lack of resources and the outage due to SINR)
for non-subscribers and for the overall users increase, as the number of non-subscribers increases for
both bandwidths (10MHz, 15MHz).

This is because in closed access method only subscribers ae allowed to connect to the femto access
poins, and non-subscribers are only allowed to connect to the macro base station of the cell under
study , and this causes:
1. A great outage in non-subscribers caused by lack of resources , because a limited number of
resource blocks are available, 50R.B. for lOMHz ad 75R.B. for 15MHz, for non
subscribers.
Z. A great outage in non-subscribers caused by iterference fom neighbouring femto access
points, because the probability of sharing the same resource block increases (i.e. the
probability of interference).
1m
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Numberofnon-subscrIbers
.). Non-subscriber lOMHz -Non-subscriber lSMHz
Overall lOMHz --Overall lSMHz
Fig. 3: Closed access method. (1) The relation between the both the overall and the non-subscribers' throughput,
ad the number of non-subscribers,(2) The relation between the overall and the non-subscribers' outage and the
number of non-subscribers.
Case (2): It has been noticed that:

From fgA. l, both the throughput per subscriber (Summation of the throughputs for all subscribers
divided by the number of subscribers) and the overall throughput per user (Suation of the
throughputs for all users divided by the total number users) decrease as the number of non
subscribers increases for both bandwidths ( lOMHz, 15MHz).

From fgA.2, both the total percentage outage (due to lack of resources and the outage due to SINR)
for subscribers and for the overall users increases, as the number of non-subscribers increases for
both bandwidths (10Mz, 15MHz).

This is because in open access method both subscribers and non -subscribers are allowed to connect to
the femto access points, and this causes:
1. The subscribers' chance to connect to the F AP decreases and Outage due to lack of
resources in subscribers increases.
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2. The average throughput of the subscribers decreases, and so the overall average throughput
decreases also.

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25 50 75 10 125 150 175 20
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- -Overall IbNH2
Fig. 4: Open access method. (1) The relation between the both the overall and the subscribers' throughput, and
the number of non-subscribers,(2) The relation between the overall and the subscribers' outage and the number
of non-subscribers
Case (3): To be able to make fair comparison between Hybrid access method and the two other methods we
must remain the number of non-subscribers constant, and notice the change in performance, the number of non
subscribers is considered to be 150 non-subscribers.

From fg.5.1, as the ratio n , the portion of the resources of each F F reserved for non -subscribers,
the throughput per non-subscriber increases for both badwidths (IOMHz, I 5 MHz), and this is
because the non-subscribers' chace to connect to the F AP and get high throughput increases.

From fg.5.2, as the ratio n increases, total percentage outage (due to lack of resources and the outage
due to SIR) for non-subscribers decreases for both badwidths (lOMHz, 15MHz), and this is
because the non-subscribers' chace to connect to the F AP and get better coverage increases.
1

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... Overall IUNH2
D
-Non-subscriber IbNH2
--Overall IbNH2
)non-subscriber IUNH2
... Overall IUNH2
D
-Non-subscriber IbNH2
--Overall IbNH2
Fig. 5: Hybrid access method. (1) The relation between the both the overall and the non-subscribers' throughput,
and n,(2) The relation between the overall and the non-subscribers' outage , and n.
By compaing fg.3.1 with fg.5.1 and fg.3.2 with fg.5.2 we can notice how the drawbacks of closed access
were solved by Hybrid access.

From fg.5.3, It has also been noticed that the throughput per subscriber remains un-affected until the
ratio n reaches a value (n=O.6 for BW= IOMHz and n=O.7 for BW= 15MHz) , and then Femtocells
cannot meet the requirements of the subscribers, then the average throughput per subscriber
decreases.

From fg.5A, It has also been noticed that the subscribers' total percentage outage remains un
afected until the ratio n reaches a value (n=0.6 for BW= lOMHz and n=0.7 for BW= 15Mz) , ad
then Femtocells cannot meet the requirements of the subscribers, the subscribers' total percentage
outage increases.
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90
W

=

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60

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.). Subscriber IUNH2
Overll 1NHI
D
-Subscriber IbNH2
--Overll IbNHI
0.2
.). Subscriber IUNH2
Overall IUNH2
0.4 0 0.8
D
-Subscriber IbNH2
--Overall IbNH2
Fig. 5: Hybrid access method. (3) The relation between the both the overall and the subscribers' throughput, and n,(4)
The relation between the overall and the subscribers' outage , and n.
By comparing fgA. l with fg.5.3 and fgA.2 with fg.5A we can notice how the drawbacks of open access
were solved by Hybrid access.
From the above results, it has been noticed that the larger the badwidth is the better the performance is.
It has also been noticed that the value of n should be careflly tuned so that it can improve the performance of
the non-subscribers and doesn' t reduce the performance of the subscribers in the same time.
. LONCU5ON5
This paper introduced the three types of access methods, the closed, the open, and the hybrid access method;
both closed and open access methods suffer fom disadvantages.
Due to cross-tier interference, the closed access method reduces the performance of the non-subscribers, as it
decreases the throughput and increases the outage.
Although, the open access method improves the performance of the network, it reduces the performance of the
subscribers, as it shares their own resources with others.
In this paper, Hybrid access method was proposed as a solution of the above mentioned problems, it has
solved the problem of the closed access method by improving the performance of non-subscribers, and solved the
problem of the open access method by improving the perforance of subscribers.
Finally, Hybrid access method brings together the best of both worlds (closed and open access); if it is well
employed we can get the benefts and overcome the drawbacks of both worlds.
HEFERENCE5
[1] Alvaro Valcarce, David L6pez-Perez, Guillaum De La Roche, and Jie Zhang "Limited access to OFDM
femtocells," Personal, Indoor ad Mobile Radio Communications Symposium (PIMRC), Tokyo, Japa,
September2009.
[2] David L6pez-Perez, Alvaro Valcarce, Guillaum De La Roche, E. Liu, and Jie. Zhang, "Access Methods to
WiM Femtocells: A downlink system-level case stud," in 11th IEEE Interational Conference on
Communication Systems, Nov. 2008.
[3] S. Calaw, "IPR and the Potential Efect on Femtocell Markets," FemtoCells Europe, ABIresearch, London,
UK,June 2008.
[4] Guillaume de la Roche, Alvaro Valcarce, David L6pez-Perez, and Jie Zhang "Access Control Mechanisms
for Femtocells" IEEE Communications Magazine Volume: 48. January 2010, Page(s): 33 - 39.
[5] Jie Zhang and Guillaume de la Roche,"Femtocells: Technologies and Deployment", 2010 John Wiley &
Sons ,Ltd., chapter:9 , page(s): 281-282 .
[6] Han-Shin Jo, Cheol Mun, June Moon, ad Jong-Gwan Yook "Interference Mitigation Using Uplink Power
Control for Two-Ter Femtocell Network ", IEEE Trasactions on wireless communications , Vol. 8, No.
10, October 2009, Page(s):4906 - 4910.
[7] Ajay R. Mishra " Cellular technologies for emerging markets 2G, 3G and beond", John Wiley & Sons,
Ltd, 2010, Chapter 5, page: 132.
[8] Stefania Sesia, Issam Toufk, Matthew Baker "LTE - The UMTS Long Term Evolution fom Theor to
Practice . John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2009, Chapter 22, Page 521.
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[9] HaIi Holma ad Antti Toskala "LTE for UMS - OFDM and SC-F Based Radio Access "q 2009 John
Wiley &Sons Ltd, Chapter 9, Page(s): 213 - 214.