ICIC

Inter-Cell Interference
Coordination

Introduction
In LTE, due to orthogonal nature of OFDM signal, there is no intra cell
interference. However, as the signal coming from different cells is not
orthogonal in nature, cell edge user may experience interference from
adjacent cell.
LTE is designed for frequency reuse 1 (To maximize spectrum efficiency),
which means that all theneighborcells are using same frequency channels
and therefore there is no cell-planning to deal with the interference issues
There is a high probability that a resource block scheduled to cell edge
user, is also being transmitted by neighbor cell, resulting in
highinterference, eventually low throughput or call drops
Traffic channel can sustain upto 10% of BLER in low SINR but control
channels cannot. Neighbor interference can result in radio link failures at
cell edge.
Heterogeneousnetworks require some sort of interference mitigation,
since pico-cells/femto cells and macro-cells areoverlappingin
manyscenarios

ICIC
In order to keep the inter-cell interference (ICI) under the control of radio
resource management (RRM) methods,Inter-Cell Interference Coordination
(ICIC)is introduced in 3GPP Release-8 specifications to mitigate
interference on traffic channels only.
ICICis inherently a multi-cell RRM function that needs to take into account
information (e.g. the resource usage status and traffic load situation) from
multiple cells.
In Release-8 the frequency domainICICis prioritized which manages radio
resources, notably the radio resource blocks, such that multiple cells
coordinate use of frequency domain resources.
ICIC mitigates interference on traffic channels only.
ICIC uses power and frequency domain to mitigate cell-edge interference
from neighbor cells

ICIC
One scheme of ICIC is where neighbor eNBs use different sets of resource
blocks through out the cell at given time i.e. no two neighbor eNBs will use
same resource assignments for their UEs. This greatly improves cell-edge SINR.

The disadvantage is decrease in throughput throughout the cell, since full

resources blocks are not being utilized.

In the second scheme, all eNBs utilize complete range of resource blocks for
centrally located users but for cell-edge users, no two neighbor eNBs uses the
same set of resource blocks at give time
More specifically, the focus was to define X2 signalling that could be used for
the co-ordination between cells that belongs to two different eNBs. The X2AP
message used forICICpurpose is called LOAD INFORMATION.
An eNB transmitting LOAD INFORMATION message to eNBs controlling intrafrequency neighbouring cells includesCellInformationfor 1 or several cells.

LOAD Indiactor
The purpose of Load Indicator procedure is to transfer load
nad interference co-ordination information between eNB
controling intr-frequency neighbouring cells .
Cell Information Item

(Cell_ID, UL Interference Overload Indication)

UL High Interference Information

(Taget_Cell_ID, High Interference Indication )

Relative Narrowband Tx Power

(RNTP per PRB, RNTP Threshold , Number of cell-specific antenna ports ,PDCCH
Interference Impact)

LOAD INFORMATION over X2AP

LoadInformation-IEsX2AP-PROTOCOL-IES::={
{IDid-CellInformationCRITICALITYignoreTYPECellInformation-ListPRESENCEmandatory},
...
}

CellInformation-List::=SEQUENCE(SIZE(1..maxCellineNB))OFProtocolIE-Single-Container{{CellInformationItemIEs}}
CellInformation-ItemIEsX2AP-PROTOCOL-IES::={
{IDid-CellInformation-ItemCRITICALITYignoreTYPECellInformation-ItemPRESENCEmandatory}
}

CellInformation-Item::=SEQUENCE{
cell-IDECGI,
ul-InterferenceOverloadIndicationUL-InterferenceOverloadIndicationOPTIONAL,
ul-HighInterferenceIndicationInfoUL-HighInterferenceIndicationInfoOPTIONAL,
relativeNarrowbandTxPowerRelativeNarrowbandTxPowerOPTIONAL,
iE-ExtensionsProtocolExtensionContainer{{CellInformation-Item-ExtIEs}}OPTIONAL,
...
}

UL-InterferenceOverloadIndication::=SEQUENCE(SIZE(1..maxnoofPRBs))OFULInterferenceOverloadIndication-Item
UL-InterferenceOverloadIndication-Item::=ENUMERATED{
high-interference,
medium-interference,
low-interference,
...
}

UL-HighInterferenceIndicationInfo::=SEQUENCE(SIZE(1..maxCellineNB))OFUL-HighInterferenceIndicationInfo
-Item

UL-HighInterferenceIndicationInfo-Item::=SEQUENCE{
target-Cell-IDECGI,
ul-interferenceindicationUL-HighInterferenceIndication,
iE-ExtensionsProtocolExtensionContainer{{UL-HighInterferenceIndicationInfo-Item-ExtIEs}}OPTIONAL,
...
}

UL-HighInterferenceIndication::=BITSTRING(SIZE(1..110,...))

Uplink Interference Coordination

InRelease-8,twoIEsaredefinedinLOADINFORMATIONmessagetoassistuplink
ICIC;theOverload Indication(OI)and High Interference Indication(HII)

Uplink Interference Overload Indication

TheUL Interference Overload IndicationIE received in the LOAD INFORMATION
message indicates the interference level experienced by the indicated cell on
all resource blocks, per PRB. For each PRB, one of three levels of interference
(High, Medium, Low-interference) is indicated.

The receiving eNB would take this OIinformation into account when setting its
scheduling policy to improve the interference situation for the eNB which has
sent thisOI.
The uplink High Interference IndicationIE received in the LOAD INFORMATION
message indicates, per PRB, the possibility of high sensitivity to interference as
seen by the sending eNB.
The receiving eNB should try to avoid scheduling cell edge UEs in its own cells
for the concerned PRBs. This reduces Uplink interference to cell-edge
transmissions in its own cells as well as in the cells of eNB from whichHIIwas
received.
TheTarget Cell IDIE received within theHII IE indicates the cell for which the
corresponding uplinkHIIis meant.

Downlink Interference Coordination

TheIERelative Narrowband Tx Power(RNTP)isdefinedintheLOAD
INFORMATIONmessageforinterferencecoordinationinthedownlink.

RNTP
RNTPindicates, per PRB, whether downlink transmission power is lower
than the value indicated by theRNTPThreshold IE i.e., the sending eNB
indicates if Downlink Tx power is higher or lower than a set threshold
value. As shown in the figure above, the receiving eNB may take such
information into account in scheduling its own cell-edge terminals and try
not to schedule on the same PRBs to avoid interference.

RNTP IE

Conclusion
ICICis limited to data channels and does not reduce interference on control
channels. Moreover, Release-8/9ICICworks well for homogeneous
networks but it doesnt provide significant gain in Heterogeneous Network
(HetNet). This is due to the fact thatICIChas a limitedRange Extensionas
it applies only to data channels and not to control channels where
interference can remain significant.
ICIChas evolved to better support HetNets, especially interference control
for downlink control channels. Enhanced ICIC (eICIC) was introduced in LTE
Release-10 andFurther enhanced ICIC (FeICIC) in Release-11.