Load distribution in heterogeneous cellular networks

This letter provides the distributions on the association region of a small-cell BS (sBS) and that of a macro-cell BS (mBS) in a two-tier heterogeneous cellular network (HCN) as functions of the power and density ratios between tiers. Computer simulation results confirm that the proposed distributions are quite accurate for a wide range of network parameters. By using the association region distributions, the load distribution of a BS in each tier is derived. From the results, it is shown that the load is more dispersive in tier s than in tier m, which can be used for devising improved association, resource allocation and load balancing schemes in an HCN.