Cell splitting is a method of subdividing cell into a smaller sized cell. In this cell, the parent cell that was originally congested is called as macro cells and the smaller cell called microcells.
The most important benefits for cell splitting is that it increases the cellular capacity of the system where the frequency reuse techniques can be efficiently implemented
Each microcell has a base station antenna. The radius of the microcell is half a radius of the macro cell.
In cell splitting, if the increased number of a cell will increase the number of clusters over the coverage area and will increases the number of channel per unit area so that the capacity of the system is increased.
For the new cell to be a smaller size, the transmitted power must be decreased. in this process, the large macro cell is dedicated to high traffic. In macrocell, the number of hands offs will be less than and also have the call process can be smoothly carried in larger cells.
This post also gives some advantages and disadvantages of cell splitting to know more details about this concept.
Advantages of cell splitting :
- It improves the S/N ratio.
- It reduces interference which increases capacity.
- It reduces the cluster size.
- System capacity gradually expands as demand.
Disadvantages of cell splitting :
- Handoff is more frequent.
- Channel assignment becomes difficult.
- All cell are not simultaneously so special care have to be taken for proper allocation of the problem.