Patent attributes
Provided is a method of controlling interference in a heterogeneous network environment. The method includes: a first operation of measuring, by a terminal located in a coverage area of a macro cell base station, signal strengths of the macro cell base station and a small cell base station, and broadcasting or unicasting, by the small cell base station, data having a cell range expansion (CRE) value; a second operation of transmitting a CRE flag value to the small cell base station by performing a hand-off to the small cell base station according to a result of comparison of the signal strengths of the small cell base station and the macro cell base station, which is obtained from the first operation; and a third operation of respectively counting terminals located in a CRE area and terminals located in a coverage area of the small cell base station, based on the CRE flag value received through the terminal at a predetermined period for measurement, and transmitting the counting data to the macro cell base station.