Energy-Saving Solution for Future Cellular Systems

Abstract

The interest of Telecom operators and Internet service providers (ISPs) is directed to reducing the energy consumption, especially at the base station which is the main energy consumer in the cellular network. The continuous increase of subscribers and the spread of services offered have motivated this interest. Following this increase, a lot of projects and techniques were established to demonstrate how to save energy in next generation wireless networks. The two main reasons for "Green Communication" are reducing CO2 emission and minimizing the operating expenditure (OPEX) for cellular networks. The challenge remains in the idea of accomplishing this decrease without having any negative effect on the quality of service (QoS) required for the users and the network’s performance. In this paper, the desire to move toward green communication is discussed by evaluating the amount of saved energy that can be reached by adopting a cooperative management between two operators providing network resources within the same region. We will use both networks in high traffic times, while one of them will be turned off during weak traffic periods. When the operator is switched off, its subscribers are granted roaming over the other network that is still on. The obtained simulation results have shown significant energy saving.