Distribution of cell-common downlink signals in a hierarchical heterogeneous cell deployment

摘要

A high-power point and one or more low-power points transmit signals that are associated with the same cell-identifier in a heterogeneous cell deployment. The coverage areas corresponding to the low-power points fall at least partly within the coverage area for the high-power point, so that mobile stations within range of a low-power point are also within range of the high-power point, from a downlink perspective. The same CRS signals are transmitted by both the high-power (macro) point and some or all of the low-power (pico) points. At the same time, the network transmits CRS-based PDSCH for a particular UE on both the high-power point as well as on some or all of the low-power points. In some embodiments only a subset of the points, e.g., those points that the UE hears sufficiently well, participate in the PDSCH transmission using CRS for channel estimation.