In a multiple transmit antenna, single antenna per receiver downlink channel
with limited channel state feedback, we consider the following question: given
a constraint on the total system-wide feedback load, is it preferable to get
low-rate/coarse channel feedback from a large number of receivers or
high-rate/high-quality feedback from a smaller number of receivers? Acquiring
feedback from many receivers allows multi-user diversity to be exploited, while
high-rate feedback allows for very precise selection of beamforming directions.
We show that there is a strong preference for obtaining high-quality feedback,
and that obtaining near-perfect channel information from as many receivers as
possible provides a significantly larger sum rate than collecting a few
feedback bits from a large number of users.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Communications, July 200