1

Abstract In this paper, we propose a switch on/off algorithm

for Base Stations (BSs), which exploits the knowledge of the
distance between the User Equipments (UEs) and their associated
BS. Our novel approach hopes to provide an improvement to the
problem of energy consumption. The major concern lies on
reducing the energy consumption of the telecommunication
networks by optimizing the power utilization without sacrificing
the offered Quality of Service (QoS). Our proposed scheme
achieves a significant power saving, based on switching off the
Base Stations that are underutilized during low traffic periods
(especially during night) in the LTE-Advanced.

Index Terms Energy-efficient, LTE-Advanced, Green
Communication, Base Station Switching On/Off
I. INTRODUCTION
ONG TERM EVOLUTION (LTE) is a new cellular standard
formally submitted as a candidate Fourth Generation (4G)
system by 3GPP. LTE-Advanced, in turn, refers to the most
advanced version of LTE [1].
The LTE-Advanced architecture is typically composed of
three interactive domains: (i) the UEs, (ii) the Evolved
Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN), and
(iii) the core network, which is called Evolved Packet Core
(EPC). The EPC comprises several functional entities. The
Mobility Management Entity (MME) is responsible for the
control plane functions related to subscriber and session
management. The Serving Gateway (SG) is the anchor point
of the data interface towards E-UTRAN. Moreover, it acts as
the routing node towards other 3GPP technologies. The
Packet Data Network Gateway (PDNG) is the termination
point for sessions towards the external packet data network.
The Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) controls the
tariff making and the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS)
configuration of each user [2].
Green Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
has gained significant traction in the last recent years. The
main catalyst for this change is the impact of ICT on the
earth's climate and the fact that energy consumption is
growing at a staggering rate. ICT is responsible for a
percentage which varies between 2% and 10% of the annual
world-wide energy consumption [3]. Since telecommunication
networks are growing fast in exponential values, energy
consumption of ICT is expected to increase in fast rates. In
particular, since the BS, called evolved NodeB (eNB) in LTE-
Advanced, is the principal entity of ICT power consumption
[4], it is clear that reducing the power consumption of BSs is
of highest importance.
In the context of BSs planning, several works have been
proposed in literature. In [5], [6], [7] different approaches for
switching off a specific number of BSs in UMTS cellular
networks during low traffic periods are presented. In [5],
Chiaraviglio et al. switch off a random number of BSs and the
energy saving is computed by means of simulations for UMTS
cellular networks. In [6], the same authors provide an
improvement of their former work. They propose a dynamic
network planning for switching on/off the BSs, considering a
uniform and a hierarchical scenario. In another work [7],
Marsan et al. show how to optimize energy saving, by
assuming that any fraction of cells can be switched off
according to a deterministic traffic variation pattern over time.
In addition, in [8], two approaches that achieve energy saving
are proposed: (i) a greedy centralized algorithm where each
BS is examined according to its traffic load and it is
determined whether it is going to be switched off or not, and
(ii) a decentralized algorithm where each BS locally estimates
its traffic load and decides independently whether it is going
to be switched off or not. Gong et al. [9] propose a dynamic
switch on/off algorithm based on blocking probabilities. The
BSs are switched off according to the traffic variation with
respect to a blocking probability constraint. The authors take
into account the fact that the BSs should stay in active or
sleeping mode for a minimum time. Apart from the previous
studies that propose switch on/off algorithms for UMTS
cellular networks, simple analytical models are also
introduced for reducing the power consumption in Wireless
LANs (WLANs) [10], [11]. In particular, in [10] a cluster is
responsible for deciding which BS should be switched off by
estimating the associated users and the traffic load of each BS.
In the same context, a switch on/off approach for dense
WLANs based on the number of associated UEs to each
Access Point (AP) is presented in [11].
In all the aforementioned works, the main focus is the
energy aware management of cellular access networks, mainly
UMTS and WLANs. The goal is to decrease the energy
consumption by reducing the number of active BSs. The BSs
are switched off during low traffic periods when their
presence is not essential for the proper operation of the
"Green" Distance-Aware Base Station Sleeping
Algorithm in LTE-Advanced
Alexandra Bousia
1
, Angelos Antonopoulos
2
, Luis Alonso
1
, and Christos Verikoukis
2

1
Signal Theory & Communications Dept., Technical University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain
email: {alexandra.bousia, luisg}@tsc.upc.edu
2
Telecommunications Technological Centre of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain
email: {aantonopoulos, cveri}@cttc.es
L
2
network. The decision of which BSs should be switched off is
either random (e.g. half of the BSs are switched off), or based
on the traffic load of each BS (e.g. the BSs with the lowest
traffic load are switched off).
The contribution of our work is twofold: (i) we consider the
distance between the UEs and their associated eNBs in order
to minimize the energy consumption of the whole network,
and (ii) we deal with the LTE-Advanced Standard. The energy
saving problem is studied by switching off some eNBs under
low traffic conditions.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In Section II
we describe our system model, and the adopted network
traffic profiles. Section III introduces our proposed switch
on/off algorithm. The numerical results for the energy saving
are provided in Section IV, while Section V concludes the
paper.
II. THE SYSTEM MODEL
We consider a dense deployed network, where the coverage
areas of neighboring cells overlap, as it is shown in Fig. 1.
Our network consists of a set of K cells that have the same
coverage radius R and traffic load that has the periodic
day/night pattern (Fig. 2).


Figure 1. Network Topology

We consider a traffic generation model based on a M/M/N
queue, which represents the traffic flows between the UEs and
the eNBs in our telecommunication network. The model relies
on the following assumptions: (i) eNBs generate traffic
according to a Poisson process with mean ; (ii) traffic service
time follows an exponential distribution with mean 1/.
Despite the simplifications that have been made in the traffic
model, it is still an adequate and realistic representation of the
traffic in order to estimate the amount of energy saving that
can be obtained with energy-aware planning.
The call generation rate has the typical periodic night/day
pattern, such as the one reported in Fig. 2 [5]. The traffic
function ) (t f has the simple sinusoidal shape, which we
assume that corresponds to the day/night pattern. The night
zone extends from 8pm to 8am. We assume that the daily
traffic profile repeats periodically, and the average traffic per
user in all access networks is the same, so that the overall
traffic is proportional to the respective number of users.


Figure 2. Traffic generation rate vs time

Regarding the eNB power consumption in a cell, we know
that the total operating energy of an eNB is composed of two
parts: a constant part
const
E covering the energy that is
independent of the number of users and their distances (e.g.
power for cooling, power supply, etc.) and a dynamic
part
dyn
E which corresponds to the energy consumption for
the radio operation. The dynamic part consists of two parts:
trans
E , is the energy during for transmission which depends
on the number of users and their distance from the associated
eNBs, and
idle
E that corresponds to the energy consumed
when eNB is in idle state.
The total operating energy is given in the following
equations. For a single cell, with one eNB that serves N users,
the total energy consumption is:
dyn const total
E E E + = ) 1 (
on const const
t P E =
) 2 (

( )
idle idle
N
i
i trans i trans dyn
t P t P E + =
_
=1
, ,

) 3 (



Where,
const
P is the power consumption of the eNB when switched
on,
on
t is the total time that the eNB is switched on,
i trans
P
,
is the power consumed during a transmission to the
UE i,
i trans
t
,
is the time that the eNB transmits data to the UE i,
idle
P is the power consumption of the eNB when idle,
idle
t is the total time that the eNB is idle.

The transmission power can be calculated as [12]:
3

(
(

|
|
.
|

\
|
=

a
i ile x
RB
i trans
L
L
R
N
P P
,
min max ,
, max ,
1
min

) 4 (

i i ile x
R l L
10 ,
log 6 . 37 + =

) 5 (


Where,
max
P is the maximum transmission power,
RB
N is the number of subcarriers assigned to the UE,
min
R is the minimum power reduction rate to prevent UEs
with good channels to transmit at very low power level,
i ile x
L
,
is the x-percentile pathloss (plus shadowing) value
for the user i. If x is set to5 , then statistically 5% of UEs
with bad channels will transmit at
max
P . The pathloss and the
shadowing depend on the distance of each UE.,
1 0 < < a is the balancing factor for UEs with bad
channels and UEs with good channels,
L is the pathloss,
l is a constant that incorporates the fast fading and the
shadowing of the channel,
i
R is the distance between UE i and eNB.

We further assume that when we switch off one of the
eNBs, its traffic load should be served by a neighbor eNB that
remains active. Therefore, the total energy consumption of the
eNB, that remains switched on is:
AE + =
total new total
E E
_

) 6 (

_
=
|
|
.
|

\
|

(
(

|
.
|

\
| +
= AE
N
i
i trans
a
i
RB
t
L
R l
R
N
P
1
,
10
min max
log 6 . 37
, max ,
1
min
) 7 (

Where,
total
E is the energy consumption of the eNB taking into
account only its traffic and its
const
E
AE is the extra energy consumed due to the additional
traffic of the switched off eNB.

The equations (6) and (7) inherently imply the effect of the
distance between the eNB and the UEs that are now associated
because of the switch on/off algorithm.
III. THE PROPOSED SWITCH ON/OFF ALGORITHM
In this section, we describe the proposed eNB switch on/off
scheme that reduces the power consumption.
The system is designed to operate in order to satisfy the
QoS constraints under off-peak traffic load periods. Hence,
the underutilization of the eNBs during low traffic periods
leads to a significant energy waste. Our objective is to switch
off some eNBs when the traffic load is low, and our intention
is to decide the number of the eNBs to switch off and the
conditions under which the switch on/off scheme is effective.
The decision is very crucial and we have to take into account
that the QoS should not be degraded, the cell coverage should
not be reduced and the network operations must be stable.
When we switch off some eNBs, the coverage is restricted,
and thus, some users are in the outage. Consequently, we must
provide radio coverage to the parts that were covered by the
switched off eNBs. In order to achieve increased coverage, we
must increase the transmission power. The transmission power
depends on the distance of the UE, as it is demonstrated in
equations (4) and (5). As a result, the longer the distance
between the UE and the eNB is, the greater the transmission
power we use [13], [14]. Hence, the impact of the distance on
the transmission power, the propagation and the pathloss
makes it an appropriate indicator in the decision about which
and how many eNBs have to be switched off.
Summarizing from the above, the proposed idea is to switch
off an eNB not according to its traffic load, but according to
the average distance of its users. Therefore, each eNB should
estimate the distance of its UEs. Then each eNB should also
estimate the distance of the UEs of its neighboring eNBs, after
exchanging the necessary information through X2. Each eNB
calculates the average of the above distances. Greater average
distance leads to greater average transmission power. Our
algorithm proposes to switch of the eNB with the maximum
average distance value because this eNB would increase its
transmission power in a greater value if it was switched on.
Our algorithm leads to power saving, but it is important that
it guarantees the QoS. The QoS refers to the outage
probability of the UEs and throughput. The outage occurs
when there is no eNB to serve the traffic of a switched off
eNB. Our proposed scheme deals with the reduction of outage
probability by maintaining the cell coverage of the network.
The outage probability must be almost zero. Although we
switch off some eNBs, the remaining eNBs are responsible for
covering the parts of the networks that were covered by the
switched off eNBs. In addition, before switching off an eNB,
we first ensure that the remaining eNBs can serve the traffic
of the network. We do not switch off any further eNBs if
those that remain on are not able to serve the existing traffic at
the present time in the network.
The proposed eNBs switch on/off algorithm works as
follows (Fig. 3):
Step 1: Each eNB estimates the distance of its UEs and
obtains the information for the distance of the UEs that are
associated with its neighbors through the X2 interface.
Step 2: The eNBs calculate the average distance of the traffic
load based on the results of the first step. The eNBs are ranked
based on the estimated average and they are examined from
the top one with the maximum average distance value.
Step 3: The first eNB is switched off, if there is no QoS
degradation, and the neighboring eNBs deal with the possible
increases in the transmission power.
Step 4: The algorithm continues with the next eNB in the list,
until the maximum number of eNBs is switched off. As the
eNBs are switched off, we should guarantee that there is no
QoS degradation.
4
Estimation of the distance between
each eNB and its UEs and between
each eNB and the UEs of its
neighboring eNBs
Start
Calculation of the average distance
of the traffic load
Transmission power increase of the
neighboring eNBs
Switch off eNB
Power saving calculation
End of switch on/off
algorithm
Switching off the 1
st

eNB of the list leads to
QoS degradation?
No
Yes
End
eNBs ranking in descending order
according to the average distance

Figure 3. Switch on/off scheme
IV. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
A. Simulation Scenario
In the previous section, we explained the proposed energy-
aware algorithm to dynamically switch off the eNBs. Here, we
study how our scheme is applied to a given network
configuration.
For our experiments, we consider a typical urban scenario,
similar to the one presented in Fig. 4. The network is
composed of 25 = K cells, where the distance among the
eNBs is 800 meters [15]. The eNBs are deployed in an
orthogonal grid, while each eNB has to serve the same
number of users (10 UEs on average). For the calculation of
the power consumption, we consider the power that is
consumed in the eNBs for the downlink transmission. Models
and simulation assumptions are selected according to the
3GPP evaluation criteria [15] (summarized in Table I).
Control channels are assumed to be error-free. In each
iteration of the simulation, UEs are placed in the system area
based on a uniform distribution and the eNBs generate traffic
according to a Poisson distribution. The packet size we use for
the simulation is 1500 bytes. The radio channel between each
eNB and UE pair is calculated according to the propagation
and fading models.
In our simulations, we compare our proposed algorithm to a
switch on/off scheme, where half of the eNBs are randomly
switched off [5].
We present an example in order to see how the two
algorithms behave. We consider the following scenario, as it
is shown in Fig. 4. The case study is based on an outdoor wide
area cellular network scenario, where the coverage areas of
the eNBs overlap. We assume that we have four identical
eNBs with the same cell coverage and the same traffic load.
The eNBs are located at the center of each cell.

Figure 4. Example for the proposed algorithm

When we apply the random switch on/off scheme, we
assume that eNB
1
is switched off based on a random decision.
However, according to our proposed algorithm, we select to
switch off eNB
3
, since the UEs of eNB
1
are gathered near the
cell edge far from eNB
2
, eNB
3
, and eNB
4
. Apparently, the
random decision leads the eNBs to considerable transmission
power increase in order to cover the whole area and to serve
the traffic load of the switched off eNB. On the other hand,
the proposed distance-aware scheme selects intelligently the
eNB to be switched off, thus succeeding the minimum
transmission power increase.

Table I. Simulation Parameters based on LTE-Advanced
Traffic Model
User distribution Uniform
Variable: 0.03-0.15 calls/sec
(Fig.2)
1/50 calls/sec
Radio Network Model
Distance attenuation
R l L
ile x 10
log 6 . 37 + =

, R is
the distance in meters ( 3 . 35 = l )
Inter site distance 800 m
Penetration loss (L) 20 dB
System Models
Maximum UE output
power
250 mW (24 dBm)
Scheduling Random scheduling with 10 users
BS total TX power 46 dBm
BS idle power 0.19 dBm
Power Control
Path-loss
Compensation
=0.8
B. Simulation Results
In the following figures, we show the actual performance of
different energy saving approaches under a realistic daily
traffic profile.
Figure 5 shows the average power consumption of our
proposed scheme compared to the random algorithm and the
case that all eNBs remain active. Figure 6 represents the
percentage of saving in the power consumption during night.
We assume that every eNB can be switched off for about 12
hours, saving 29% of power consumption in a day. Comparing
to the random switch on/off algorithm, our proposed scheme
5
achieves up to 10% better performance. Figure 7 depicts the
energy efficiency accomplished by our proposed scheme. For
the energy efficiency metric we calculate the number of bits
that are delivered per energy unit. The energy efficiency
metric is appropriate for our network because both the
numerator (the number of delivered bits) and the denominator
(the network energy consumption) are typically variable.
Thus, the efficiency metric is more convenient for networks
with low traffic load.


Figure 5. Average power consumption achievable when
half of the eNBs are switched off vs. time

Figure 6. Maximum % power saving vs. time

Figure 7. Energy efficiency vs. time
V. CONCLUSION
In this paper we studied the energy consumption problem.
We proposed a smart strategy in order to minimize the energy
consumption in a given network, without compromising the
offered QoS. We introduced a distance-aware algorithm that
achieves a significant reduction in power consumption. In
particular, we proved how important is to efficiently choose
the eNBs to be switched off during low traffic periods, by
considering not the distance of the UEs from the eNB. Our
results indicated that we can save up to 29% of the power
consumed to operate the network, by decreasing the number
of the active eNBs during low traffic periods. In our future
work, we plan to elaborate on models that will achieve greater
energy efficiency.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work has been funded by the Research Projects
GREENET (PITN-GA-2010-264759), CO2GREEN
(TEC2010-20823) and GEOCOM (TEC2011-27723-C02-
01). GREENET is funded by the EU and GEOCOM by the
Spanish Governement.
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