Energy Efficiency Improvements through Micro Sites in Cellular Mobile Radio Networks

Efforts to increase the energy efficiency of information and communication systems in general and cellular mobile radio networks in particular has recently gained momentum. Besides positive environmental effects, lowering the energy consumption of mobile radio systems appears beneficial from an economical perspective. In this regard, the deployment of small, low power base stations, alongside conventional sites is often believed to greatly lower the energy consumption of cellular mobile radio networks. In this paper we investigate that matter in more detail from a deployment perspective. We evaluate potential improvements of the area power consumption achievable with network layouts featuring varying numbers of micro sites in addition to conventional macro sites for given system performance targets under full load conditions.