Analysis Of Heterogeneous Cellular Networks

Using Poisson Point Process Model

M P S Hemanth Kumar
Under the guidance of Prof. Abhay Karandikar
Department of Electrical Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
Email: hemanthmps@iitb.ac.in

AbstractThe extensive growth in Internet-connected devices

and their high data rate requirements is driving the exemplary
shift in the way cellular network infrastructure is deployed.
Increasing the power of tower-mounted base stations is no more
a cost effective procedure. This report discusses the transition
of cellular networks from well planned Base Stations (BSs) to
irregularly placed heterogeneous elements like picocells, femtocells, remote radio heads, etc. These different type of elements
are distinguished by their transmit power strength, physical size,
backhaul. Later, we provide a feasible and flexible model for
the heterogeneous cellular networks (HCNs) in theory which is
found to be well in agreement to practical results. One such
interesting observation is that in interference limited open access
networks at given Signal-to-Interference-plus-Noise-Ratio (SINR)
adding more tiers or BSs neither increases nor decreases outage
probability in case of equal target-SINR.
Index TermsHetNets, Poisson point process model, stochastic
geometry, picocells, femtocells, coverage probability.

Fig. 1. Illustration of 3-tier HCN comprising of macro, pico and femtocell

BSs. Zoomed to single Macrocell BS.
Type of Element

I. I NTRODUCTION
ay-by-day, the number of mobile devices that are connected to the Internet is increasing in an exponential
fashion. So, to satisfy this increasing demand of data traffic,
the operators are forced to increase the capacity of their
conventional networks. But doing this in the traditional manner
of deploying high power tower mounted base stations is not a
cost effective measure. A shift in the regular cellular network
design has to be employed by use of heterogeneous elements.
The cellular network which comprises the heterogeneous
elements is called Heterogeneous Cellular Network (HCN).
Figure 1 shows the general 3-tier HCN model which is zoomed
to single macrocell for simplicity.
The heterogeneous elements may be a picocell, a femtocell,
a microcell, relays or even a remote radio head (RRH), which
differ from one other by their characteristics. The purpose
of HetNet elements is solely different from the macrocells.
A macrocell is generally intended to increase the wide area
coverage whereas the picocells, femtocells, microcells are
intended for dead coverage zones and for areas of high data
traffic zones. Relays are deployed by operators to enhance
quality of signal at cell edges. Remote radio heads (RRH) are
placed at remote places like rural areas and are connected to
a base station through optical fiber cables. Table I gives the
specifications of different elements in a typical heterogeneous
network.

Transmit Power

Covergae Area

Macrocell

46 dBm

Few kilometers

Picocell

23-30 dBm

300 meter

Femtocell

23 dBm

50 meter

Relay

30 dBm

300 meter

RRH

46 dBm

Few kilometers

TABLE I
S PECIFICATIONS OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF H ET N ET ELEMENTS

The HetNet topology disobeys the regular cellular system

design and analysis rules. These rules are
1) Usage of uniform hexagonal grid to model the base
station locations
2) The assumption that mobile unit always connects to the
strongest signal providing base station.
The modeling of cellular networks is very much necessary
as it gives out a practical understanding of how these networks
work and also the models will help the operators in implementing newly proposed techniques efficiently while deploying new
Base Stations or increasing the transmit power of BSs.
Organization of Report: In later sections, we provide the
modeling and analysis of Heterogeneous Cellular Networks
and show that it can co-exist with a macro network from an
infrastructure point of view. Also, at last we discuss interference management techniques related to HetNet topology.

II. H ETEROGENEOUS C ELLULAR N ETWORK M ODEL

A. Regular Cellular Network Model
There arent any drastic changes in the regular cellular
networks design and modeling since several decades. The
same old techniques are being used by both research scholars
and industrial analysts. The research scholars method involves
mathematical analysis with too much simplification which
involves ignoring key parameters like other-cell interference
or assuming it has a fixed value Wyner model. Wyner model
assumes channel gains from all interfering BSs as equal and
constant over a cell. This has a defect of no distinguishing
between cell edge users and interior users and also in most of
cases doesnt have a notion for outage probability as SINR is
kept fixed and deterministic. All these assumptions make the
results dubious and not useful for real time implementation.
Whereas, industrial analysts perform system level simulation
which often include all metrics modeled and tuned into the
system. The industrial analysts methods have been sufficiently
accurate to proposing new techniques and guiding the network
operators in deploying the new BSs but the gain from these
techniques is hard to see. No doubt analysts and researchers
have end up on two different paths with their results. Moreover, these two different categories of people assumed cellular
network to be a hexagonal grid model for base station locations. They also assumed end users are uniformly distributed
in space and always connect to the strongest base station.
But moving on to Heterogeneous Cellular Networks, both
of these modelings are not feasible. Performing system level
simulations becomes even more complex as each tier of base
station has different characteristics. Macrocells are uniformly
deployed and have high transmit power, high BS density,
high coverage area. Whereas, Lower Power Nodes (LPNs)
comprising of femtocells, picocells, microcells, RRHs have
entirely different characteristics as depicted in table I. The
femtocells are user deployed, have low transmit power, low
coverage area and are spatially random located. These may
be closed access or open access. Picocells have relatively
high transmit power than femtocells but are usually operator
deployed with some sort of planned deployment. Also the
coverage area is limited to few hundreds of meters. So, using
the regular two-dimensional hexagonal grid model will not be
a tractable model [1]. A conceptual illustration of coverage
regions and random spatiality is depicted in figure 2.
There are several other models which can be used to
model the heterogeneous cellular networks like geometric
model, probabilistic model, stochastic model and with some
exceptions the hexagonal grid-based model. Although gridbased models are not an accurate way to model HetNets, still
one can obtain a model by overlapping a series of grids of
different tiers. One such model is used in 3GPP. In this model,
every macrocell BS is viewed as hexagonal grid and each grid
is allocated six picocells which are located on the boundary
edges of neighboring BSs. Other 3GPP models are similar
to this approach only but show a little variation regarding
the placement of picocells. While some models have equally

Fig. 2. Max SINR downlink coverage regions in a 3-tier network model with
macrocells (red), femtocells (black) and picocells (green). Adapted from: [2]

spaced picocells inside the hexagonal region, some may have

randomly spaced picocells inside the hexagonal region.
B. Poisson Point Process Model
The least acceptable model is to assume that the BSs are
independently distributed, which are not. Macrocell BSs are
always deployed in a well-planned manner and assuming them
as identical and independent distributed (i.i.d) elements is the
worst case. But as the information regarding the deployment of
picocells and femtocells is not available, so one can use this
approach to model HetNets. Also this stochastic model has
given good tractable approach to the Heterogeneous Cellular
Networks [3].
A good spatial model begins with spatial point process to
statistically model the base station locations of each tier and
such modeling is easily given by Poisson Point Process (PPP)
Model. In this model, it assumes that base stations in tier-K
are independently distributed with density k , implying in an
area A there are k A base stations. We can also include other
characteristics for each tier-K such as transmit power Pk and
path loss exponent k . But in this report, We discuss about
nominal PPP model which is called as Baseline PPP model.
The PPP model resembles to Rayleigh distribution method
used for fading wireless channels in the wireless domain.
Although, Rayleigh approximation is not a good channel
model, it captures most of the essential variations of a wireless
channel and has provided a rigorous first-order understanding of many forms of diversity, multi-antenna transmission,
and other wireless design fundamentals. Like Poisson spatial
model, a Rayleigh envelope is simple and analytically tractable

since it results in an exponential power probability distribution.

Similarly, Poisson model can also be used for better understanding of how to design HetNets which have a high degree
of spatial randomness although the underlying model is not so
accurate.

1) Coverage probability in open access models:: When

i > 1, the coverage probability of a mobile user is given as
Pc ({i }, {i }, {Pi }) =

K
X

Z
i

exp(C()
R2

i=1

III. A NALYSIS OF H ETEROGENEOUS C ELLULAR

N ETWORKS

K
X

As said, We will use P P P model to model K -tier Heterogeneous Cellular Network in which BS in i -th tier is
spatially distributed as a Poisson Point Process i of density
i , transmit power Pi and a target SINR of i . So, the metrics
of each tier are now uniquely deifned as {i , Pi , i }. A mobile
unit can now make reliable communication with BS x in i -th
tier if its downlink SINR is greater than i . The mobile units
are also modeled as a independent PPP m of density m .

m=1

A. SINR Equation
We analyze a typical mobile user who is assumed to be at
origin for calculation of SINR. The fading function between
a BS, assumed to be at a point x and mobile user is denoted
as hx , which is an i.i.d exponential. The standard path loss
function is given by l(x) = kxk , where > 2 is path loss
exponent. Now, received power at a typical mobile user from
a BS of tier i located at xi is given by multiplying the transmit
power, fading function and the path loss function. Therefore,
signal strength is obtained as Pi hxi kxk . The resulting SINR
expression is given as

SINR(xi ) = PK P
j=1

Pi hxi kxi k

xj \xi

Pj hx kxk + 2

(1)

where 2 is the additive noise power.

We can instantly say that the mobile user at origin is in
coverage region if
max SINR(x) > i ,

xi

for some 1 i K, where i is as defined. Equation 1 can

be simplified further if we assume i 1 ( 0 dB). Using this
assumption and Lemma VII-A, we obtain that there is at least
one BS in entire network which provides an SINR greater than
the threshold, i .
B. Calculating Coverage Probability
A mobile unit is said to be in coverage region if it is able
to connect to at least one BS with target SINR above the
threshold, i . Now, we will present coverage probability in
both open access and closed access models.
Open access model: In this model, all tiers are openly accessible meaning every mobile user is allowed to connect to any
tiers without any restriction.
Closed access model: In this model, access to tiers is closed
meaning mobile users in certain region can connect only to a
subset of tier. This model is also called as Closed Subscriber
Group model.

2/
m Pm
exp(

i 2/
kxi k2
Pi

i 2
kxi k )dxi , (2)
Pi

1
where C()=2 2 csc( 2
.
)
This equation upon imposing no-noise case i.e.,
interference-limited case, because the self-interference
generally dominates the thermal noise, simplifies into

Pc ({i }, {i }, {Pi }) =
C()

PK

2/ 2/

i Pi i
PK
2/
i=1 i Pi

i=1

(3)

where i > 1, and this simplified equation is obtained by

keeping 2 = 0 in equation 2.
The importance of Equation 3 can be determined by setting
K=1 which further simplifies the probability of coverage as
Pc (, , P) =

C() 2/ .

(4)

This result is consistent with the general observations,

which says that in a single-tier case the change in density of
BSs does not show any effect on coverage probability. The
intuition behind this can be drawn as a change in density
of BSs leads to same changes in received and interference
powers at a same level and hence the coverage probability
remains unaffected.
But the main important result which can be obtained from

Equation 3 is, if i = , i, then Pc (, , P) = C()

2/ .
which is an unexpected result since it states that the coverage
probability is not dependent on number of tiers or their
relative densities or transmit powers in an interference-limited
network and also it is equal to the that of a single-tier
case. The intuition behind this result is that a mobile user
connects to a BS considering only the received SINR and
common target SINR excluding the dependency on the tier
it belongs to. This can be simply stated as mobile units do
not differentiate between the tiers if common threshold is
imposed. A beautiful result can be obtained from this is
more BSs can be added to any tier in order to increase the
network capacity without affecting Pc . So, from all these
observations we can conclude that addition of femtocells or
picocells does not decrease the network performance in open
access models.
2) Coverage probability in open access models:: Since we
are calculating for a closed access model, the mobile user is
allowed to connect to only a set of cells. Let this set be B,
then coverage probability is given as

Pc ({i }, {i }, {Pi }) =

Z
i
R2

iB
K
X

exp(C()

2/
m Pm
exp(

m=1

i 2/
kxi k2
Pi

i 2
kxi k )dxi , (5)
Pi

Equation 5 upon considering the interference-limited case

modifies as
Pc ({i }, {i }, {Pi }) =

C()

2/ 2/
i
iB i Pi
,
PK
2/

P
i
i
i=1

(6)

Now we wish to show that coverage probability in closed

access model will be less than that of open access model
by assuming the same assumptions we have made previously.
(Assuming all tiers have same threshold and the threshold
is equal to transmit power in each tier ). After all these
assumptions
were included, Equation 6 will be simplified as
P
PiB i
. From this, We can clearly say that coverage
C() K
i=1 i
probability of closed access P
model is less than that of open
i
.
access model by a factor of PiB
K

i=1

2) For Closed Access Models: For closed access models,

the average fraction of users in coverage region served by j th
tier is given as
(
j j
j B,
Pc ({i },{i },{Pi })

(9)
Nj =
0
otherwise,
P

2
2/
R
C()( Pi )2/ kxk2 K
i kxk
m=1 m Pm
i
e Pi
where, j = R2 e
dx.
which upon simplifying to interference-limited networks will
be given as

2/ 2/
P j Pj j
j B,
2/ 2/
i
Nj =
(10)
iB i Pi
0
otherwise,

We can further notice that, if a mobile user always connecting to strongest BS is an suboptimal way of utilizing the HCNs
because it is highly suggested that a mobile user connects to
an weaker BS if it is lightly loaded. This indicates the shifting
of mobile user from a heavily loaded strong BS to a lightly
loaded weaker BS by which both the BSs are benefited. This
has to be incorporated in the HCN by giving a bias Bk to the
each tier so that BSs from weak tiers are made on par with
macrocell BSs. Then Equation 8 will be modified as
2/

(P B )2/ j
j = P j j j
.
N
K
2/ 2/
i
i=1 i (Pi Bi )

C. Calculating Average Load per Tier

(11)

Average load per Tier is another metric which is useful in

analyzing HCN models. It is defined as average fraction of
users served by that tier. This metric can also be interpreted
as average time for which the mobile user stays connected to
that particular BS in a tier.
1) For Open Access Models: The average fraction of users
served by j th tier in open access model is given as

This is called Cell Range Extension. This serves as notion

to increase the number of users served by lower tiers but
this method also increases the interference in Heterogeneous
networks. To compensate this we discuss about Interference
Coordination Techniques in next section.

Z
j
i 2/
exp(C()
kxi k2
Pc ({i }, {i }, {Pj }) R2
Pi
K
X
i 2
2/
m Pm
) exp(
kxi k )dxi . (7)
P
i
m=1

Interference problems in heterogeneous networks are complex compared to interference problems in homogeneous networks. Few cells like femtocells are typically deployed by user
and can be very near to another macrocell BS. Thus, femtocell
users may face a strong interference from the macrocell. Few
user laid femtocells may have access only to a closed user
group so a mobile user who is near femtocell but does not
have access to that femtocell, may still be connected to the
macrocell which is far away and thus faces interference from
the femtocell which is near to him. Unplanned deployment
of cells from users makes the interference problems more
complex in heterogeneous networks. Picocells, femtocells have
low power transmitters so in a handover scheme that uses
strategy to connect to the cell that provides strongest downlink
SINR and a mobile user very near to a picocell or a femtocell
will still connect to macrocell with large transmission power
that is far away. Thus the purpose of picocells and femtocells
to offload traffic from macrocell is not served. In order for
mobile users to connect to near by picocells, femtocells we
use range expansion technique. Though range expansion may
balance the load in the network, it increases the interference

j =
N

When noise is neglected, i.e., = 0 average fractional load

is given as
2/ 2/

P
j
j = P j j
.
N
2/ 2/
K
i
i=1 i Pi

(8)

This equation shows that the load is directly proportional to

2/ 2/
j Pj j
which agrees with intuition that load will be
higher if BS density is high or if transmit power is high or if
the threshold is less. Now, if we further assume that all target

thresholds and transmit powers are equal then Nj = PK j .

i=1 i
This result stand as an concrete proof of our PPP model
assumption to a HCN, since if all transmit powers are equal
then the load should be directly proportional to BS density.

IV. I NTERFERENCE C OORDINATION T ECHNIQUES T O

I MPROVE C OVERAGE

or degrades SINR . This is because the mobile users are not

always connected to cell that gives strongest SINR and may
face severe interference in downlink path. The interference
problems degrade the network performance sufficiently and
hence in heterogeneous networks, use of inter cell interference
coordination (ICIC) schemes is required to guarantee minimum Quality Of Service (QOS).
One such technique is to use Fractional Frequency Reuse
(FFR) which helps in avoiding interference caused by cell
range extension method. FFR is commonly of two types, Strict
FFR and Soft FFR (SFR). The main idea of Strict FFR is
to use different frequency bands and create strict partitions
between the adjacent cells. This method distinguishes between
edge and inner users basing on SINR and reuses the resource
blocks of inner users in each cell whereas the edge users are
allocated orthogonal FFR resource blocks by which adjacent
cell interference is eliminated. In SFR technique, the cell
region is divided into central cell region and edge cell region.
The central region is allocated entire spectrum whereas the
cell edge region is allocated a small part of spectrum. Since,
cell edge region has lost some spectrum it is compensated by
increasing the level of carrier power of edge users. Figure 3
shows the partitions and band allocations in both Strict FFR
and Soft FR.

around is to provide a wireless backhaul by utilizing the

unlicensed spectrum(white spaces) or the ones which are not
useful for wireless communication.
Validity of PPP model: The PPP model works excellently
for unplanned tiers like femtocells and picocells but for
planned tiers like macrocell BSs it is not a quite good
approximate. In real time simulations, it has been found that
employing PPP model is as effective as employing Hexagonalgrid model for macrocells, where PPP model being the lower
bound and Hexagonal model being the upper bound to the
actual coverage probability.

VI. C ONCLUSIONS
The rapid growth of Internet connected devices and their
data requirements forces us to shift from regular cellular network to heterogeneous cellular network. In this report, we have
provided a tractable model for the analysis of K-tier HCNs and
from that we provided associated analysis procedure, which
led to simpler mathematical expressions for important performance metrics like SINR, coverage probability, average load
per tier. Also, We have justified our PPP model assumption to
HCNs which turned to be as accurate as Hexagonal-grid model
for one-tier cellular networks. The theoretical arguments for
adding heterogeneous elements to increase the performance or
network capacity are stated strongly. We have also seen cell
range extension technique and its effect on interference. So,
We should resort to some sort of interference management
techniques like Enhanced Intercell Interfernce coordination
techniques. Lastly, to give an overview, a comparison was
shown in Table II between regular cellular network model and
heterogeneous cellular network model.

Fig. 3. Frequency band allocations in Strict FFR and Soft FR. f1 , f2 , f3 , f4

are frequency bands.

VII. A PPENDIX
A. Lemma 1

V. E FFECT ON BACKHAUL
Backhaul is the part in cellular network model which
connects base stations to core network. This connection may
be wired or wireless. At any given point of time, We can say
that backhaul connection is more important than the speed
of cellular network. Femtocells are similar to WiFi Access
Points and follow the same backhaul connection as them. In
case if we use a wired connection for a 10MHz femtocell like
a modem cable or DSL line, then it is sure that femtocells will
be limited to low data rates. So, it is advised to use a wireless
backhaul for femtocells depending upon the cost effectiveness.
Picocells, which are operator deployed, are expected to have
a high quality backhaul connection since these are aimed
to provide mobile users a better experience in regards of
coverage and data rate. Picocells cannot have a wired backhaul
connection since it is pretty much cost in-effective to provide
a high quality wired backhaul connection. So, the better way

Given a set of positive real numbers {a1 , a2 , . . . , an }, which

here correspond to the received power from each BS at the
typical mobile user and defining ci = P aaij +2 , which
j6=i

corresponds to the SINR of the ith BS, at most m ci s can

be greater than 1/m for any positive integer m.

B. Theorem 1
Let Bn R2 denote an increasing sequence of convex sets
with Bn Bn+1 and limn |Bn | = . For this proof, we
denote SINRxm (xb ) as the received SINR when the mobile is
located at xm 6= 0 connects to BS located at xb . Recall that
the subscript is dropped and SINRxm is denoted as SINR when
the mobile user is located at the origin. The average fraction
of users served by the j th tier can now be expressed as:

Aspect

Regular Cellular Model

Performance Metric

Coverage probability measured in terms of SINR

Coverage probability distribution measured in terms

or Spectral efficiency (bps/Hz)

of Average Rate or areal spectral efficiency (bps/Hz/m2 )

BSs are spaced in a organized manner and hexagonal

BSs are placed randomly and picocells, femtocells are nested

grid model is used to analyze the network.

inside macrocells. BSs are modeled with the help of PPP.

Cell Association

Mobile Users connect to the strongest BS all the time

Mobile Users connect to the BS which provides the highest

Handoff criteria

Handoff will occur when transition from one BS

For highly mobile users handoffs and dropped calls are

to other takes place. Handoffs are decent.

frequent due to small cells. Handoffs are a major concern.

Backhaul of BSs is wired.

Backhaul of BSs of lower tiers is wireless.

Most of the times this backhaul is not a problem

This wireless backhaul creates the bottleneck problem.

Network Topology

Heterogeneous Cellular Network Model

data rate. This is done by biasing lower tier BSs.

Backhaul

Interference Management

All BSs are open access.

Some BSs have closed access.

Employing frequency reuse schemes will suffice.

Enhanced ICIC Techniques have to be used.

TABLE II
C OMPARISON OF A R EGULAR C ELLULAR M ODEL AND H ETEROGENEOUS C ELLULAR N ETWORK M ODEL .

X
j = lim 1
N
n |Bn |
xm Bn m

[
[
1
SINRxm (xj ) > j |
xj j

(SINRxm (xi ) > i ))

R EFERENCES

iK,xi i

(a) !o

=P

SINR(xj ) > j |

xj j

(SINR(xi ) > i )

iK,xi i

!
P
(b)

SINR(xj ) > j ,

xj j

(SINR(xi ) > i )

iK,xi i

S

where (a) follows from ergodicity and stationarity of PPP

and
S(b) follows from Bayes
 rule. Substituting the value of
P
SINR(x
)
>

, which is coverage probability of

j
j
xj j
single tier j, gives the average fraction of users served by j th
tier.

iK,xi i (SINR(xi )


> i )

S

SINR(x
)
>

P
j
j
xj j

= S
(SINR(x
)
>

)
P
i
i
iK,xi i

(12)

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