  Modern cellular networks in traditional frequency bands are notoriously
interference-limited especially in urban areas, where base stations are
deployed in close proximity to one another. The latest releases of Long Term
Evolution (LTE) incorporate features for coordinating downlink transmissions as
an efficient means of managing interference. Recent field trial results and
theoretical studies of the performance of joint transmission (JT) coordinated
multi-point (CoMP) schemes revealed, however, that their gains are not as high
as initially expected, despite the large coordination overhead. These schemes
are known to be very sensitive to defects in synchronization or information
exchange between coordinating bases stations as well as uncoordinated
interference. In this article, we review recent advanced coordinated
beamforming (CB) schemes as alternatives, requiring less overhead than JT CoMP
while achieving good performance in realistic conditions. By stipulating that,
in certain LTE scenarios of increasing interest, uncoordinated interference
constitutes a major factor in the performance of CoMP techniques at large, we
hereby assess the resilience of the state-of-the-art CB to uncoordinated
interference. We also describe how these techniques can leverage the latest
specifications of current cellular networks, and how they may perform when we
consider standardized feedback and coordination. This allows us to identify
some key roadblocks and research directions to address as LTE evolves towards
the future of mobile communications.
