Opportunistic exploitation of resources for improving the energy-efficiency of wireless networks

Unequivocally, one of the main challenges of the arising wireless world is to support the QoS-demanding services. However, the solutions that will be considered should not only take into account the optimization of the network performance, but should also be energy efficient both for the operator and the end-user. This paper presents the concept of Opportunistic Networks (ONs) as an energy efficient method to exploit wireless networks. The case studied in this work comprises a macro base station which faces congestion issues. The proposed solution will offload the traffic from a proportion of the macro-terminals to nearby femtocells, through the creation of an ON. Therefore, the femto-terminals will operate to lower power levels leading to less energy consumption and battery savings. In addition, femtocells will operate to the minimum transmission power that is needed in order to serve the users resulting in operational expenditure savings. Results from simulations are provided to confirm the proposed solution.