  One of the main problems in wireless heterogeneous networks is interference
between macro- and femto-cells. Using Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple
Access (OFDMA) to create multiple frequency orthogonal sub-channels, this
interference can be completely avoided if each sub-channel is exclusively used
by either macro- or a femto-cell. However, such an orthogonal allocation may be
inefficient. We consider two alternative strategies for interference
management, opportunistic resource allocation (ORA) and interference alignment
(IA). Both of them utilize the fading fluctuations across frequency channels in
different ways. ORA allows the users to interfere, but selecting the channels
where the interference is faded, while the desired signal has a good channel.
IA uses precoding to create interference-free transmissions; however, such a
precoding changes the diversity picture of the communication resources. In this
letter we investigate the interactions and the trade-offs between these two
strategies.
