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Measurement Based Time-Domain Power Saving Through Radio Equipment Deactivation on Sub-6GHz Base Station Site

Authors:
Youssef Agram
François Rottenberg
François Quitin

Keywords: power consumption; base station; measurements; deactivation; radio units.

Abstract:
The paper presents a methodology for reducing the power consumption of radio access networks by scheduling the use of radio equipment from multiple radio access technologies while keeping comparable quality of service. Although 5G New Radio (NR) is known to be more energy-efficient than legacy 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) equipment, previous work shows higher static power for 5G-NR equipment using active antennas. In the context of increasing data traffic and the deployment of 5G-NR equipment along 4G-LTE, the question of concurrent energy-efficient use of these two technologies for a given traffic load arises. This analysis relies on on-site measurements from a macro sub-6GHz base station in Belgium, evaluating the energy efficiency of 4G-LTE and 5G-NR radio units. Our findings demonstrate that 5G-NR equipment are more energy-efficient at higher traffic levels, i.e., ≥ 150 Mbps, while using 4G-LTE is preferable at lower traffic due to their smaller static power consumption. Besides, dynamic energy-efficiency is 3 to 9 times higher for 5G-NR compared to 4G-LTE. The paper also proposes several radio unit deactivation scenarios: 1) using 4G-LTE radio units only and redirecting traffic on 5G-NR when reaching 80% of the maximum 4G-LTE capacity, 2) using 5G-NR radio units exclusively, and 3) dynamically selecting between 4G-LTE and 5G-NR based on the computed downlink data traffic threshold. Results show that Scenario 3 achieves the largest energy savings, reducing power consumption by 31.5% at the base station level. This paper demonstrates that it is possible to significantly reduce the energy footprint with equipment that is currently deployed.

Pages: 15 to 20

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2024

Publication date: November 3, 2024

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2519-8483

ISBN: 978-1-68558-203-6

Location: Nice, France

Dates: from November 3, 2024 to November 7, 2024