Effect of Densification on Cellular Network Performance with Bounded Pathloss Model

TL;DR

This paper examines how increasing base station density affects cellular network performance using a realistic bounded pathloss model, revealing that densification can degrade coverage probability and that area spectral efficiency initially improves then declines.

Contribution

It introduces the use of a bounded pathloss model for analyzing densification effects, showing that coverage probability decreases at high densities and deriving the ASE scaling law.

Findings

Coverage probability decreases with high BS density.

ASE initially increases then decreases exponentially with density.

Densification can negatively impact network performance at ultra-dense levels.

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate how network densification influences the performance of downlink cellular network in terms of coverage probability (CP) and area spectral efficiency (ASE). Instead of the simplified unbounded pathloss model (UPM), we apply a more realistic bounded pathloss model (BPM) to model the decay of signal power caused by pathloss. It is shown that network densification indeed degrades CP when the base station (BS) density $\lambda$ is sufficiently large. This is inconsistent with the result derived using UPM that CP is independent of $\lambda$. Moreover, we shed light on the impact of ultra-dense deployment of BSs on the ASE scaling law. Specifically, it is proved that the cellular network ASE scales with rate $\lambda e^{-\kappa\lambda}$, i.e., first increases with $\lambda$ and then diminishes to be zero as $\lambda$ goes to infinity.