Performance analysis of scheduling and interference coordination policies for OFDMA networks

In orthogonal frequency division multiple access systems there is an intimate relationship between the packet scheduler and the inter-cell interference coordination (ICIC) functionalities: they determine the set of frequency channels (sub-carriers) that are used to carry the packets of in-progress sessions. In this paper we build on previous work – in which we compared the so called random and coordinated ICIC policies – and analyze three packet scheduling methods. The performance measures of interest are the session blocking probabilities and the overall throughput. We find that the performance of the so-called Fifty-Fifty and What-It-Wants scheduling policies is somewhat improved by coordinated sub-carrier allocation, especially in poor signal-to-noise-and-interference situations and at medium traffic load values. The performance of the All-Or-Nothing scheduler is practically insensitive to the choice of the sub-carrier allocation policy.