Potential of energy-oriented network optimisation: Switching off over-capacity in off-peak hours

Mobile communication networks are usually planned to provide some minimum service quality level during peak traffic hours. Consequently, in off-peak hours, when traffic loads are lower, the network is characterised by over-capacity, in the sense that same service quality targets can typically be satisfied with a reduced set of network resources, e.g. sites, carriers, etc. In this paper, we propose a procedure for deriving the potential of energy-oriented network optimisation, and apply this procedure to the case of a UMTS/HSDPA network. Depending on the desired performance target and the energy consumption model, energy savings from energy-oriented network optimisation of up to about 40% are shown to be attainable.