Energy-efficient management of UMTS access networks

The increasing concern about the energy consumption of telecommunication networks is driving operators to manage their equipments so as to optimize energy utilization without sacrificing the user experience. In this paper, we focus on UMTS access networks, since access devices are the main energy consumers in UMTS networks. We propose a novel approach for the energy-aware management of UMTS access networks, consisting in a dynamic network planning, that, based on the instantaneous traffic intensity, reduces the number of active access devices when they are underutilized (typically at night). When some access devices are switched off, radio coverage and service provisioning are taken care of by the devices that remain active, possibly with some small increase in the emitted power, so as to guarantee that service is available over the whole area, with the desired quality.