Optimal scheduling and power control for tdma based point to multipoint wireless networks

In TDMA-based point-to-multipoint rural wireless deployments, co-located base station radios and sector antennas are used to increase base station capacity. To achieve maximum capacity with limited availability of non-overlapping wireless channels, we need to operate as many radios as possible from different sectors on the same channel. However, operating co-located radios on the same channel can result in substantial interference especially with the current practice of operating all radios at maximum power. We investigate techniques that increase network throughput by eliminating this interference. To this end we formulate an LP optimization problem that maximizes throughput by computing optimal transmit schedules, optimal allocation of clients to base station radios, and optimal radio power levels. Our results suggest that there is a large gap between currently-used and optimal strategies, creating opportunities for simple, practical algorithms to address these issues. Our techniques are equally applicable to both WiFi based networks as well as other point-to-multipoint technologies such as WiMax.