Capitalizing on the analytical potency of stochastic/ngeometry and on some new ideas to model intercell interference,/nthis paper presents analytical expressions that enable quantifying/nthe spectral efficiency of IA (interference alignment) in cellular/nnetworks without the need for simulation. From these expressions,/nthe benefits of IA are characterized. Even under favorable/nassumptions, IA is found to be beneficial only in very specific and/nrelatively infrequent network situations, and a blanket utilization/nof IA is found to be altogether detrimental. Applied only in the/nappropriate situations, IA does bring about benefits that are/nsignificant for the users involved but relatively small in terms of/naverage spectral efficiency for the entire system.

This work was supported by the European Project FET 265578 “HIATUS”