Information theoretic capacity of the cellular uplink - Average path loss approximation

In this paper we investigate the information theoretic capacity of the uplink of a cellular system where all base station receivers jointly decode the received signals ("hyper-receiver"). Considering a distance depended power-law path loss and a more realistic Rician fading environment, we model a variable cell density network with geographically distributed user terminals. Multiple tiers of interference are considered and using an average path loss approximation model the analytical result for the per cell sum-rate capacity is found. We examine the various parameters that are affecting the capacity of the system. Especially the effect of the user distribution across the cells and the density of the cells in the cellular system is investigated. We validate the numerical solutions with Monte Carlo simulations for random fading realizations and we interpret the results for the real-world systems.