Coordinated multipoint power consumption modeling for energy efficiency assessment in LTE/LTE-advanced cellular networks

Chronological developments from first (1G) to state-of-the-art fourth generation (4G) cellular networks have demonstrated remarkable exploits particularly in terms of peak data rate, throughput and spectral efficiency. However, this paper focuses on the energy efficiency (EE) aspect of cellular communications which apparently has been neglected until very recent years. Popular approaches for EE assessment (2G and 3G power consumption models) have been base station deployment strategies and joint management design/optimization techniques. This paper takes a step further to present a coordinated multipoint (CoMP)-enabled mathematical power consumption model for cooperating 4G base stations (eNodeBs) derived via component-oriented modeling technique; a view that a system or equipment comprises numerous energy-consuming components. We utilize the energy consumption rating (ECR) metric for the assessment of energy efficiency and simulations are carried out on the model with or without base station cooperation (BSC). Overall, results indicate on average that considerable energy savings up to 13% can be realized through BSC (CoMP).