A Performance Evaluation Framework for Interference-Coupled Cellular Data Networks

In regard to the continuing network densification as a part of the solution to the mobile data traffic demand explosion, managing future 5G ultra-dense networks is becoming increasingly complex. Moreover, the problem of (partly) limited capacity in time and space requires the joint treatment of spatio-temporal data traffic and inter-cell interference dynamics. Concerning this matter, we propose a performance evaluation framework, which is capable of estimating various cell-specific and userspecific key performance metrics considering the complex spatiotemporal interaction of traffic and interference dynamics. We provide methods to obtain these metrics with low complexity, making the framework attractive to be applied to self-organizing network solutions for future (ultra-)dense networks. We stress on the framework?s broad applicability and demonstrate the effects of internal flow and external interference dynamics on network performance under various conditions. In particular, we highlight the dominance of these dynamics over the impact of the speed of the variation of inter-cell interference, the scheduler, the file size distribution, and fast fading.