Techno-economic Balance of Load-Adaptive Telecommunication Network Operation for Energy Efficiency Improvements

Load-adaptive telecommunication network operation has crystallized as a promising option for improving the network energy efficiency. On the one hand significant energy savings are expected when the network capacity follows the traffic load, on the other hand efforts for preparing networks for this kind of dynamic operation are necessary regarding, for example, systems and network processes. To account for all this, an energy-related and a generalized techno-economic balance is developed. Results calculated for exemplary traffic load curves and boundary conditions show that there are significant monetary benefits to be expected in particular in case of moderate validity periods of the network configurations. Furthermore, the need to evaluate the load-adaptive network operation case from a techno-economic viewpoint carefully before employing it in a particular telecommunication network becomes evident.