Exploiting Cell dormancy and Load Balancing in LTE HetNets

A computer implemented method for LTE heterogenous networks (HetNets), the method comprising the steps of:

• considering some transmission points (TPs) from a set of TPs of interest that are made inactive over a frame, and load balancing (known as user association),
• associating users to active TPs in the set of TPs such that each user is associated to any one active TP over the frame;
• reformulating the user association for any given set of active TPs in an LTE heterogenous network as coarse time-scale (frame-level granularity) and fine-time scale (fine sub-frame/slot level) approaches;
• performing periodically the coarse frame-level granularity based on averaged slowly varying metrics that are relevant for a period longer than a backhaul latency;
• and
• doing the fine sub-frame/slot level granularity with no coordination among TPs and independently by each active TP based on fast changing information.