Cell sleeping for energy efficiency in cellular networks: Is it viable?

An approach advocated in the recent literature for reducing energy consumption in cellular networks is to put base stations to sleep when traffic loads are low. However, several practical considerations are ignored in these studies. In this paper, we aim to raise questions on the feasibility and benefits of base station sleeping. Specifically we analyze the interference and capacity of a coverage-based energy reduction system in CDMA based cellular networks using a simple analytical model and show that sleeping may not be a feasible solution to reduce energy consumption in many scenarios. © 2012 IEEE

Energy-Aware Base Stations: The Effect of Planning, Management, and Femto Layers

We compare the performance of three base station management schemes on three different network topologies. In addition, we explore the effect of offloading traffic to heterogeneous femtocell layer upon energy savings taking into account the increase of base station switch-off time intervals. Fairness between mobile operator and femtocell owners is maintained since current femtocell technologies present flat power consumption curves with respect to served traffic. We model two different user-to-femtocell association rules in order to capture realistic and maximum gains from the heterogeneous network. To provide accurate findings and a holistic overview of the techniques, we explore a real urban district where channel estimations and power control are modeled using deterministic algorithms. Finally, we explore energy efficiency metrics that capture savings in the mobile network operator, the required watts per user and watts per bitrate. It is found that the newly established pseudo distributed management scheme is the most preferable solution for practical implementations and together with the femotcell layer the network can handle dynamic load control that is regarded as the basic element of future demand response programs

Distributed Energy-Saving Algorithms for Wireless Networks

The rapid growth of wireless networks has led to increasing interest in designing new algorithms that can efficiently reduce the energy consumption of routers and other devices. We present a new formulation of the Network Flow problem that takes into account the energy consumption of the data flows, and reduces the overall network energy expenditure. We introduce an energy model for wireless connections and analyse its validity with real measurements. Then we propose a convex optimization problem that establishes energy constraints on the links, and encourages energy savings that induce sparsity (shut-off of links). We propose several algorithms that can be computed in a distributed fashion for different types of capacity constraints. Finally we justify the sparsity of the solution by using the theory of proximal methods and present simulations for different scenarios. Our algorithms have application both in wired networks as well as in TDMA and 802.11 wireless networks

A Comparative Study of Energy Efficient Medium Access Control Protocols in Wireless Sensor Networks

This project investigates energy usage in three energy-efficient WSN MAC protocols (AS-MAC, SCP-MAC, and Crankshaft) on TelosB wireless sensors. It additionally presents BAS-MAC, an energy-efficient protocol of our own design. Our evaluations show that in single-hop networks with large send intervals and staggered sending, AS-MAC is best in the local gossip and convergecast scenarios, while SCP-MAC is best overall in the broadcast scenario. We conjecture that Crankshaft would perform best in extremely dense hybrid (unicast and broadcast) network topologies, especially those which broadcast frequently. Finally, BAS-MAC would be optimal in networks which utilize hybrid traffic with infrequent broadcasts, and where broadcasting is performed by motes that do not have an unlimited power source

Cloud RAN for Mobile Networks - a Technology Overview

Cloud Radio Access Network (C-RAN) is a novel mobile network architecture which can address a number of challenges the operators face while trying to support growing end-user’s needs. The main idea behind C-RAN is to pool the Baseband Units (BBUs) from multiple base stations into centralized BBU Pool for statistical multiplexing gain, while shifting the burden to the high-speed wireline transmission of In-phase and Quadrature (IQ) data. C-RAN enables energy efficient network operation and possible cost savings on base- band resources. Furthermore, it improves network capacity by performing load balancing and cooperative processing of signals originating from several base stations. This article surveys the state-of-the-art literature on C-RAN. It can serve as a starting point for anyone willing to understand C-RAN architecture and advance the research on C-RA

Towards Energy Efficiency in RAN Network Slicing

Network slicing is one of the major catalysts to turn future telecommunication networks into versatile service platforms. Along with its benefits, network slicing is introducing new challenges in the development of sustainable network operations. In fact, guaranteeing slices requirements comes at the cost of additional energy consumption, in comparison to non-sliced networks. Yet, one of the main goals of operators is to offer the diverse 5G and beyond services, while ensuring energy efficiency. To this end, we study the problem of slice activation/deactivation, with the objective of minimizing energy consumption and maximizing the users quality of service (QoS). To solve the problem, we rely on two Multi-Armed Bandit (MAB) agents to derive decisions at individual base stations. Our evaluations are conducted using a real-world traffic dataset collected over an operational network in a medium size French city. Numerical results reveal that our proposed solutions provide approximately 11-14\% energy efficiency improvement compared to a configuration where all the slice instances are active, while maintaining the same level of QoS. Moreover, our work explicitly shows the impact of prioritizing the energy over QoS, and vice versa

Power minimization and optimum ONU placements in integrated wireless optical access networks

The deployment of optical fibre in place of copper cable in access networks has experienced remarkable growth over the past several years due to a wide range of benefits. A major benefit of optical fibre over copper cable is that it is more secure and immune to electromagnetic interferences. Optical fibre has also provided the capability of handling higher throughputs for longer distances, and experiences no crosstalk between other fibre optic cables. However, the last mile reach to end-users with optical fibre is very costly. This alternative replacement results in increased costs for manual labour and energy consumption in the access network. The current demand in all areas of telecommunications, and especially access networks, is greener networking. In order to offset the high costs of optical access implementations and to satisfy this demand, an investigation into integrated wireless optical access networks (IWOAN) is warranted. The proliferation of wireless devices has also motivated the interest in IWOAN as it combines the flexibility and efficiency of wireless with the security and stability provided by optical. With the emergence of smart phones and tablets, wireless access networks are now supporting an increasing amount of traffic volume with improved throughput and accessibility. We employ a Passive Optical Network (PON) infrastructure from the central office to the customer, traced from the Optical Line Terminal (OLT) to the customer premises devices known as Optical Network Units (ONUs) for IWOAN. At the ONU, the optical fibre is terminated and wireless communication is implemented. The ONU acts as a wireless access point/gateway for wireless Base Stations (BS) serving different coverage areas in point-to-point topology. With recent trends of advanced wireless technologies, premium rich applications such as multimedia streaming, interactive gaming and cloud computing are delivered in a satisfactory and economic way. This wireless-optical integration aims to reduce and solve the cost of replacing copper cables. However, another issue is raised with increased costs in energy consumption due to the integration of wireless and optical communication. Typically a large number of ONUs need to be deployed in order to serve many wireless BSs located in different coverage areas. As a result, any cost savings gained by the integration process is exhausted with the increased cost of power consumption