Energy Savings through Dynamic Base Station Switching in Cellular Wireless Access Networks

Reducing the energy consumption of cellular wireless access networks is not only beneficial for the global environment but also makes commercial sense for telecommunication operators. Since access networks are designed to support peak time traffic, the utilization of base stations can be very inefficient during off-peak time because the traffic profile is time varying. We study the dynamic switching of base stations (BS) to reduce the energy consumption considering the time varying characteristic of the traffic profile. We show via analysis that the mean and variance of traffic profile and the BS density are the dominant factors that determine the amount of energy saving that can be achieved. Simulations using ideal and real traffic profiles are used to quantify the potential savings from dynamic BS switching in a realistic setting.