Femtocell Interference and Mobility Management: UltraSON™

Qualcomm femtocell R&D program is focused on developing self organizing network features to address interference and mobility management for femtocell deployment in residential and enterprise environments. Interference and mobility management is a chief concern especially when operators are planning for high levels of perfromace from dense and an unplanned femtocell deployments. Qualcomm has developed UltraSON™, a comprehensive suite of interference and mobility management techniques for femtocell deployments in residential and enterprises.

As Femtocells are deployed in an unplanned manner, there will have to address several challenges namely (1) provide consistent coverage within a coverage area irrespective of their location vis-à-vis surrounding macrocells, (2) minimize downlink interference to macro users and (3) reduce or eliminate uplink noise rise for neighboring femtocells and macro cells. This is especially a concern, for femtocells deployed with restricted access. Therefore, there is a need for Femtos to self configure such that they seamlessly integrate and operate satisfactorily with the existing femto-macro network and provide excellent performance irrespective of their location in the residence, enterprise or the macro network.

The UltraSON™ techniques and algorithms have gone through extensive performance analysis, simulations and field tests. UltraSON™ supported in Qualcomm’s FSM™ chipset is designed to ensure that the femtocells delivers an excellent and reliable user experience for mobiles as they move between the femtocell and the macro network.