Narrowbeam Antennas and Fractional Loading Factor in Forward Link Cellular Communication Systems

It is well known that cellular capacity can be increased by reducing cell cluster size, since more channels may then be assigned to each cell. However, this reduction of cluster size leads to increased co-channel interference, requiring the use of some cochannel interference control techniques at the base stations or in the air interface. In this paper we ·analyze the combined application of "smart antennas" (narrowbeam antennas) and the fractional loading factor. We explore the effect of reducing the total co-channel interference, while simultaneously adjusting the cellular clus~er size. . . ·