Analyses of User Density Impact on Energy-efficiency Metrics in 5G Networks

As the number of fixed and mobile users increases constantly, the data traffic volumes increase accordingly, presenting a challenge for fifth-generation (5G) mobile networks to accommodate those high demands. Also, different demography classes which represent various expected user densities with different expected data rates, impose practical deployment challenges for 5G mobile networks. In such areas with diverse demography classes, the various number of 5G base stations (BSs) differing in size and capacity must be deployed accordingly. This directly affects the energy requirements of the 5G mobile network, and consequently the energy-efficiency (EE). In this paper, we calculate and compare standardised EE Key Performance Indicator (KPI) metric for the radio part of the simulated 5G mobile network. The analysis of the EE is conducted over four different demography class areas (indoor hotspot, dense urban, urban and rural), and for standardised data capacity EE KPI metric (bit/J). To present the impact of different 5G BS allocation strategies on the EE of the network for each demography class area, three different operation and installation strategies have been introduced. The analysis shows that the EE metric is significantly affected by different demography class areas, as well as by different operation and installation strategies of the 5G mobile network.