Abstract
We provide an analytical formula to evaluate the performance of the uplink of planar cellular networks when joint processing is enabled among limited number of base stations in a generalised fading environment. Focusing on user transmission power allocation techniques to mitigate inter-cluster interference we investigate the system’s spectral-energy efficiency trade-off. The paper addresses the gains in both cell throughput and transmissions energy efficiency due to the combined strategies of base station cooperation and user power management. We assess the effect of the propagation environment and of the key network design parameters of cooperation cluster size and intersite distance on the overall performance providing numerical results for a real-world scenario.