The power consumption of wireless access net-works will become a major issue in the coming years. There-fore, it is important to have a realistic idea about the power consumption of each element in those access networks. In this paper, an...
moreThe power consumption of wireless access net-works will become a major issue in the coming years. There-fore, it is important to have a realistic idea about the power consumption of each element in those access networks. In this paper, an energy efficiency model for microcell base stations is proposed. Based on this model, the energy efficiency of microcell base stations is compared for various wireless technologies, namely mobile WiMAX, HSPA and LTE. The power consumption of microcell base stations is about 70-77% lower than for macrocell base stations but a macrocell base station is more energy-efficient than a microcell base station for the same bit rates. However, for the considered case and assuming our parameters are correct, a reduction in power consumption can be obtained by using microcell base stations to fill coverage holes.
ABSTRACT The power consumption of wireless access networks will become an important issue in the coming years. In this study, the power consumption of base stations for mobile WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access), fixed...
moreABSTRACT The power consumption of wireless access networks will become an important issue in the coming years. In this study, the power consumption of base stations for mobile WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access), fixed WiMAX, UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System), HSPA (High-Speed Packet Access) and LTE (Long-Term Evolution) is modelled and related to the coverage. A new metric, the power consumption per covered area PCarea, is introduced, to compare the energy efficiency of the considered technologies for a basic reference configuration and a future extended configuration, which makes use of novel Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) technology. The introduction of MIMO has a positive influence on the energy efficiency: for example, for a 4×4 MIMO system, PCarea decreases with 63% for mobile WiMAX and with 50% for HSPA and LTE, compared to a Single Input Single Ouptut (SISO) system. However, a higher MIMO array size (i.e. a higher number of transmitting and receiving antennas) does not always result in a higher energy efficiency gain.
