EARTH: Paving the way for future energy efficient broadband wireless networks

Abstract

Currently, the vast majority of mobile subscribers rely on second-generation mobile technologies, but service providers are investing into aggressive rollouts of mobile broadband networks to deliver a fully-featured wireless Internet. While the main focus in research has been put on enhancing the capacity of this kind of networks, very little has been done regarding their energy efficiency. On the other hand, rising energy cost and growing awareness of climate issues require a shift of focus. The EARTH (Energy Aware Radio and neTworking tecHnologies) project addresses this by investigating and proposing effective mechanisms to drastically reduce energy wastage and improve energy efficiency of mobile broadband communication systems, without compromising system capacity and users' perceived quality of service. In this paper we sketch the main research approaches taken within the project. First, the methodologies to evaluate the energy efficiency of cellular networks, as well as the respective energy efficiency metrics are presented. Afterwards, the proposed solutions are described; within EARTH a holistic approach is being used so that advances in radio components, radio network technologies and advanced network management protocols are exploited jointly, resulting in combined gains that enable an expected power consumption reduction by 50%. © 2011 ICST Institute for Computer Science, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering.