Analysis of Cell Load Coupling for LTE Network Planning and Optimization

System-centric modeling and analysis are of key significance in planning and optimizing cellular networks. In this paper, we provide a mathematical analysis of performance modeling for LTE networks. The system model characterizes the coupling relation between the cell load factors, taking into account non-uniform traffic demand and interference between the cells with arbitrary network topology. Solving the model enables a network-wide performance evaluation in resource consumption. We develop and prove both sufficient and necessary conditions for the feasibility of the load-coupling system, and provide results related to computational aspects for numerically approaching the solution. The theoretical findings are accompanied with experimental results to instructively illustrate the application in optimizing LTE network configuration.Comment: The paper contains 22 pages with 9 figures. The paper is submitted to IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications. This is the version in Jan 2012 after one revisio