Power consumption in telecommunication networks: overview and reduction strategies

One of the main challenges for the future of information and communication technologies is reduction of the power consumption in telecommunication networks. The key consumers are the home gateways at the customer premises for fixed line access technologies and the base stations for wireless access technologies. However, with increasing bit rates, the share of the core networks could become significant as well. In this article we characterize the power consumption in the different types of networks and discuss strategies to reduce the power consumption.