Uplink rate region of a coordinated cellular network with distributed compression

We consider the uplink of a backhaul-constrained coordinated cellular network. That is, a single-frequency network with N multi-antenna base stations (BSs) that cooperate in order to decode the users’ data, and that are linked by means of a lossless backhaul with limited capacity. To implement cooperation among receivers, we propose distributed compression: the cooperative BSs, upon receiving their signals, compress them using a distributed Wyner-Ziv code. Then, they send the compressed vectors to the central unit (also a BS), which implements decoding. In this paper, the achievable rate region of such a network is studied (particularized for the 2-user case). We devise an iterative algorithm that solves the weighted sum-rate optimization, and derives the optimum compression codebooks at the BSs. The extension to more than two users is straightforward.