Power consumption in wireless access network

The power consumption of wireless access networks will become an important issue in the coming years. In this paper the power consumption of base stations for mobile WiMAX, fixed WiMAX and UMTS is modelled. This power consumption is evaluated in relation to the coverage. For a physical bit rate of 2 Mbps, a power consumption of approximately 5600 W and a range of 1 km is obtained with UMTS. Fixed WiMAX covers 70 % and mobile WiMAX only 40 % of this range. However, fixed and mobile WiMAX consume roughly 50 % less than UMTS. In a suburban area and for a physical bitrate of 2 Mbps, fixed WiMAX base stations consume approximately 6 W per user, mobile WiMAX base stations 17 W per user, and UMTS base stations 5 W per user. The power consumption of these wireless access networks is compared with other access network technologies and research challenges concerning these access networks are presented.