Energy Saving: Scaling Network Energy Efficiency Faster than Traffic Growth

As the mobile traffic is expected to continue its exponential growth in the near future, energy efficiency has gradually become a must criterion for wireless network design. Three fundamental questions need to be answered before the detailed design could be carried out, namely what energy efficiency network is, where the energy efficiency improvement may come, how the energy efficiency evaluation of a whole mobile network could be conducted. In this paper, we target to shed a light on the answers of the three questions by introducing the bottom-up energy efficiency evaluation methodology for large networks with the combination of different areas and time periods, as well as the basic traffic, deployment, and power models that will be applied therein. Moreover, we shall illustrate where the overall energy saving gain may come by analyzing the power-traffic relation and the three research projects in the GreenTouch Mobile WG. © 2013 IEEE