An Energy Efficiency Evaluation Framework for Radio Access Networks

This invited paper addresses energy and spectral efficiency trade-offs in macrocell radio access networks. Macrocell densification is used to increase the capacity of a radio access network (RAN) because the approach increases the energy efficiency (EE) as measured in bit/J. However, excessive densification increases the absolute RAN energy consumption, which is a key concern for the deployment of future cellular networks, which are expected to achieve capacity enhancement without an increase in energy consumption. In this study, an energy efficiency evaluation framework is used to shed light on the performance of a macrocell RAN under densification, in respect of the throughput, energy consumption and the energy efficiency. The results show that the network planning should take this new capacity/energy-consumption trade-off into consideration when designing joint energy and spectrally efficient RANs.