Techno-economics of Green Mobile Networks Considering Backhauling

In this paper we consider a comparative analysis of different deployment solutions in terms of total cost of ownership (TCO) and impact of energy efficiency as a cost parameter, i.e. mobile operator's electric bill. Different deployment options for the wireless segment of the network are considered: macro only versus heterogeneous networks with femto cells to support indoor traffic demand. In addition to the wireless segment different technologies for the backhauling segment are also considered: microwave versus fiber (10G-PON). Considering different user traffic intensities in an urban area and different environments such as business and residential areas, the impact of energy consumption on the TCO has been analyzed. The scope of the paper is extended to compare different backhaul technologies considering the annual increase in the traffic demand up to year 2020. The obtained results indicate that the impact of electric bill becomes more significant over the TCO especially after year 2018. Moreover, the heterogeneous deployment strategy utilizing indoor femto-cells achieves significant savings in terms of electric bill and TCO compared to the macro only solution. However, the saving ratio varies according to the adopted backhauling technology.