Green heterogeneous small-cell networks: toward reducing the CO2 emissions of mobile communications industry using uplink power adaptation

Abstract

Heterogeneous small cell networks, or Het- SNets, are considered as a standard part of future mobile networks in which multiple lowpower low-cost user deployed base stations complement the existing macrocell infrastructure. This article proposes an energy-efficient deployment of the cells where the small cell base stations are arranged around the edge of the reference macrocell, and the deployment is referred to as cell-on-edge (COE) deployment. The proposed deployment ensures an increase in the network spectral and energy efficiency by facilitating cell edge mobile users with small cells. Moreover, COE deployment guarantees reduction of the carbon footprint of mobile operations by employing adaptive uplink power control. In order to calibrate the reduction in CO2 emissions, this article quantifies the ecological and associated economical impacts of energy savings in the proposed deployment. Simulation results quantify the improvements in CO2 emissions and spectral and energy gains of the proposed COE deployment compared to macro-only networks and typical small cell deployment strategies where small cells are randomly deployed within a given macrocell.