Multiple Access Outerbounds and the Inseparability of Parallel Interference Channels

Abstract: It is known that the capacity of parallel (multi-carrier) Gaussian point-to-point, multiple access and broadcast channels can be achieved by separate encoding for each subchannel (carrier) subject to a power allocation across carriers. In this paper we show that such a separation does not apply to parallel Gaussian interference channels in general. A counter-example is provided in the form of a 3 user interference channel where separate encoding can only achieve a sum capacity of $\log({SNR})+o(\log({SNR}))$ per carrier while the actual capacity, achieved only by joint-encoding across carriers, is $3/2\log({SNR}))+o(\log({SNR}))$ per carrier. As a byproduct of our analysis, we propose a class of multiple-access-outerbounds on the capacity of the 3 user interference channel.