Deployment of Microcells by integrating LTE-U with LTE

Abstract

With increasing data requirements of users, cellular operators are finding new ways to fulfil these requirements. These attempts involve the practice of deploying Wi-Fi access points nearer to the user and backhauling it to the nearest eNB (in case of LTE and LTE-A). The paper studies LTE-U, an extension of LTE which works in the unlicensed spectrum, as a potential solution to this problem. It is based on the idea of densification. Network deployments incorporating LTE-U will be able to better cater to the growing data rate demand of voice and video, thus reducing the load on eNB. Further we explore the possibility of LTE-U as an alternative to Wi-Fi or co-existing with Wi-Fi deployments and issues revolving around this idea. We show that LTE-U deployment solves the problem of capacity in both cases.