  We consider the uplink of a cellular communication system with $K$ users per
cell and infinite base stations equally spaced on a line. The system is
conventional, i.e., it does not make use of joint cell-site processing. A hard
fairness (HF) system serves all users with the same rate in any channel state.
In contrast, a system based on proportional fairness serves the users with
variable instantaneous rates depending on their channel state. We compare these
two options in terms of the system spectral efficiency \textsf{C} (bit/s/Hz)
versus $E_b/N_0$. Proportional fair scheduling (PFS) performs generally better
than the more restrictive HF system in the regime of low to moderate SNR, but
for high SNR an optimized HF system achieves throughput comparable to that of
PFS system for finite $K$. The hard-fairness system is interference limited. We
characterize this limit and validate a commonly used simplified model that
treats outer cell interference power as proportional to the in-cell total power
and we analytically characterize the proportionality constant. In contrast, the
spectral efficiency of PFS can grow unbounded for $K \to \infty$ thanks to the
multiuser diversity effect. We also show that partial frequency/time reuse can
mitigate the throughput penalty of the HF system, especially at high SNR.
