Abstract
In this paper we derive the information theoretic capacity of the uplink of a cellular system with variable inter site distance and a generalised fading environment. The capacity is shown to be a direct function of the ratio of total received signal power (from within and outside of a cell) to the AWGN noise power, at any BS. This ratio is defined as the Rise over Thermal (RoT). It is shown that the variation in system parameters like the path loss exponent, number of users, transmit power constraint and the inter site distance, changes the region of operation on a capacity-versus-RoT curve. Results are interpreted for practical channel models and it is shown that RoT provides a useful framework to compare various practical systems.