Energy savings in wireless access networks through optimized network management

The energy consumption of wireless access networks amounts for more than 55% of the whole communication sector and for a non negligible part of the operational costs of mobile operators. In this paper we consider possible energy savings through optimized management of on/off state and transmission power of access stations according to traffic estimates in different hours of the day or days of the week. We propose an optimization approach based on a ILP model that minimizes power consumption while ensuring coverage of the active users and enough capacity for guaranteeing quality of service. Proposed model is solved to the optimum on a set of randomly generated instances that show the effect of system parameters on optimal power consumption.