Uplink Intercell Interference and Capacity in 3G LTE systems

In this paper, we study the inter-cell interference in the uplink of 3G LTE systems. The multiple access is based on SC-FDMA. This is an orthogonal access (no intra-cell interference). However, inter-cell interference remains as there is no orthogonality between cells. We then model the inter-cell interference by calculating the distribution of the number of collisions, taking into account the impact of power control. We then use this model to calculate the user capacity of the system, by mean of a Markovian analysis. We finally use the developed model to evaluate and compare different interference mitigation schemes.