Difference between LTE ICIC vs eICIC
This page describes Enhanced LTE ICIC vs eICIC i.e. Enhanced Inter Cell Interference Coordination. It mentions difference between them. Both techniques are used to reduce intra-frequency intereference between nearby cells.
LTE ICIC
ICIC stands for Inter Cell Interference Coordination. This has been introduced in LTE series of standards in 3GPP release 8. This technique helps in reducing the interference to the base station from nearby neighbouring base stations.
In LTE ICIC, power of the few subchannels is lowered which results into their reception only near to the base station. Hence there would not be any interference to nearby base station transmisssions.
ICIC reduces interference on traffic channels.
eICIC-Enhanced LTE Inter Cell Interference Coordination
eICIC stands for Enhanced Inter Cell Interference Coordination. Also referred as Enhanced LTE technique for interference mitigation between macro and pico LTE base stations. This concept is made available in 3GPP release 10. This feature is available in Heterogeneous Network comprising macro base station cells and pico base station cells. In this network, macro base stations transmit high power signals intended to cover more coverage area; while pico base stations transmit low power signals intended to cover lesser coverage area.
In eICIC technique, blank subfranes are used in the frame structure of LTE in the macro cell transmissions which helps in interference mitigation between macro and pico cells and also between macro and famto cells. But this results into lower capacity of the LTE system. This can be avoided by varying subchannel allocation to pico cells based on traffic demand.
ABS(Almost Blank Subframe) has been transmitted at low power. It carry Primary and Secondary synchronization Signals, PBCH, paging, CRS and SIB1. This makes the LTE frame compatible with 3GPP R8 and LTE R9.
Unlike ICIC, LTE eICIC reduces interference on both the traffic channels as well as control channels.
The configuration of blank subframe in LTE frame structure is transmitted over X2 interface by picocell and using OAM by femtocells under closed subscriber group(CSG) environment. In CSG services are limited to only authorized subscribers.
LTE RELATED LINKS
3GPP references
LTE tutorial
LTE System Features