Green GSM Network Operation for Energy-Efficiency via Basestations Switching Technique The Case of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2017-02
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Green communication is an innovative research area to find information and communication technology (ICT) solutions that can greatly improve efficient utilization of resources such as energy and network equipments with minimum compromise in the users quality of service (QoS). Nowadays, the globe is facing a number of serious global warming problems; these problems have a significant negative impact in terms of the environment, global health, social and economic well being. The main causes of global climate change are growing need of energy, wastage, cutting trees, global industries, etc. From the global growing need of energy, 2 up to 10% are consumed by the global ICT industry in manufacturing, using, and disposal of ICT equipments. One third (1/3) of the total ICT's energy is consumed by the telecommunication equipments; cellular networks consume 90% of it. Basestations, in turn, consume 60 to 80% of the cellular network consumption. So, green communication researches are getting high interest recently years to minimize greenhouse gas emission and also operator energy bill. Considering the densely deployed basestations in the city of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, this thesis focuses on applying switching-off basestations during off-peak (low traffic) hours as one strategy to realize green cellular network while fulfilling the requirements of voice and data traffic. The study considers 26 Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) basestations in Addis Ababa around Leghare area. Based on the hourly traffic statistics obtained from the ethio telecom, which is the sole telecommunication network service provider in Ethiopia, the area has high traffic from 5:00 am to 11:00 pm and low traffic during night time which is from 11:00 pm to 5:00 am. The latter is considered as the off-peak hours in this thesis.
The basestations switching off technique is done by turning off basestations remote radio unit (RRU) and applying antenna electrical downtilt and azimuth angles chang
[Green GSM Network Operation for Energy-Efficiency via Basestations Switching Technique..
on active basestations by considering ethio telecom basestations operation and maintenance (OAM) system capabilities of both turning off and angles changes. The switching-off strategy requires first sub-clustering basestations from the selected 26 basestations which are called in this thesis as cluster that are needed to cover the area of Leghar. This is done by comparing the existing coverage radius of basestations which are expected to cover at peak hours with that of the maximum coverage radius of basestations which basestations can cover theoretically. Each sub-cluster members are grouped as one sub-cluster if they can able to cover each other during switching off. Secondly, the traffic capacity of the sub-cluster is compared with the traffic prediction of the off-peak hours to ensure that the sub-clusters (and hence, the total active basestations) can handle the generated traffic. Then, optimize the coverage area of the sub-clusters by modifying the basestations antenna electrical downtilt and azimuth angles. The area of Leghar can be covered by 11 basestations out of 26 basestations during off-peak hours by applying the tilt and azimuth angles change. With acceptable coverage and service quality, the proposed solution of switched off basestations during off-peak hours yields above 10% energy saving for the all 26 basestations. Key words: GSM, Green communication, power consumption, energy consumption, prediction, sub-cluster
Description
Keywords
GSM, Green communication, power consumption, energy consumption, prediction, sub-cluster