  Simultaneous co-channel transmission and reception, denoted as in-band full
duplex (FD) communication, has been promoted as an attractive solution to
improve the spectral efficiency of cellular networks. However, in addition to
the self-interference problem, cross-mode interference (i.e., between uplink
and downlink) imposes a major obstacle for the deployment of FD communication
in cellular networks. More specifically, the downlink to uplink interference
represents the performance bottleneck for FD operation due to the uplink
limited transmission power and venerable operation when compared to the
downlink counterpart. While the positive impact of FD communication to the
downlink performance has been proved in the literature, its effect on the
uplink transmission has been neglected. This paper focuses on the effect of
downlink interference on the uplink transmission in FD cellular networks in
order to see whether FD communication is beneficial for the uplink transmission
or not, and if yes for which type of network. To quantify the expected
performance gains, we derive a closed form expression of the maximum achievable
uplink capacity in FD cellular networks. In contrast to the downlink capacity
which always improves with FD communication, our results show that the uplink
performance may improve or degrade depending on the associated network
parameters. Particularly, we show that the intensity of base stations (BSs) has
a more prominent effect on the uplink performance than their transmission
power.
