  The performance of multiuser systems is both difficult to measure fairly and
to optimize. Most resource allocation problems are non-convex and NP-hard, even
under simplifying assumptions such as perfect channel knowledge, homogeneous
channel properties among users, and simple power constraints. We establish a
general optimization framework that systematically solves these problems to
global optimality. The proposed branch-reduce-and-bound (BRB) algorithm handles
general multicell downlink systems with single-antenna users, multiantenna
transmitters, arbitrary quadratic power constraints, and robustness to channel
uncertainty. A robust fairness-profile optimization (RFO) problem is solved at
each iteration, which is a quasi-convex problem and a novel generalization of
max-min fairness. The BRB algorithm is computationally costly, but it shows
better convergence than the previously proposed outer polyblock approximation
algorithm. Our framework is suitable for computing benchmarks in general
multicell systems with or without channel uncertainty. We illustrate this by
deriving and evaluating a zero-forcing solution to the general problem.
