JOURNAL OF COMPUTING, VOLUME 3, ISSUE 2, FEBRUARY 2011, ISSN 2151-9617 196

HTTPS://SITES.GOOGLE.COM/SITE/JOURNALOFCOMPUTING/
WWW.JOURNALOFCOMPUTING.ORG

Conservation of Spectrum and Mobile BTS

Power Saving Strategy
P.K.Chopra1 S. Jain2

Abstract:

20th century saw the advent of technologies to travel faster, higher and further than ever before in history. The world
and universe around us are shrinking in technological time and distance. We are going through an era of ICT i.e.
Information Communication Technology revolution where communication and broadcasting assisted by Information
Technology are leading to an explosion in Mobile Communication, Multimedia Delivery and Streaming Video on the
move. We are going through a communication revolution with the cellular mobile growth at a very steep path. This
growth however is being hampered for the availability of spectrum which is a limited national resource & the ever
expanding requirement of BTSs to meet the demand of customers. It therefore calls for its judicious and optimal
utilization so that the growth of mobile connectivity is not hampered due to this constraint of spectrum & BTS. The
most important factor for mobile communication is the optimized use of BTSs. In this paper, a study made to
optimize utilization of BTSs is outlined

Keywords: BTS, Radiation, AC, DC

1. INTRODUCTION
Indian mobile has 157 operational
networks with an investment of around
Rs. 150,000 Crores. By Dec2010 the mobile
subscriber base is more than 680 million,
and continues to grow at the rate of 18-20
million every month with a wireless
teledensity of 56.61. India has lowest
Mobile tariffs, one of the lowest ARPU
(Average Revenue per User) in the world
and highest MoU (Minutes of Use)
globally. The rural subscriber base served
by private GSM operators is more than 190
million by Dec 2010, and is growing at the
rate of around 4-5 million every month, i.e.
nearly 50% of the GSM subscriber adds are
from the rural areas .Over the years Indian
mobile has shown a sustained and
stupendous growth. Telecommunications
is a critical building block for the country’s
economic development. Access
to communications needs to be seen as a
foundation on which other initiatives can
be built. In under served areas, mobile
phones can help to widen markets, create
better information flows, lower transaction
costs and substitute for costly physical
transport. Small and medium sized
enterprises (SMEs) and urban slums gain
maximum benefits in enhancing their
businesses through the use of mobile
services. Telecommunication network
operators have become very sensitive to
the energy issue, since they view
reduction of the energy as both painless
approaches to cost reduction. For this
reason, Telecom Companies and many
research organizations are studying
different energy consumption reduction
techniques including the introduction of
the energy issue in network design,
planning and management phases. In this
paper we focus on the various possible
energy efficient solutions.

1. HoD ECE Ajay Kumar Garg Engineering 2. Energy Efficient Solutions.

College, Ghaziabad, India,
(M) 09350023027 Fax: 0120-2761846 Alternatives to the existing
network architecture, offer the potential to
2. HoD ECE, IGIT, New Delhi reduce energy and power consumption.
Moving the access network closer to the
user enables a reduction in the transmit
JOURNAL OF COMPUTING, VOLUME 3, ISSUE 2, FEBRUARY 2011, ISSN 2151-9617 197
HTTPS://SITES.GOOGLE.COM/SITE/JOURNALOFCOMPUTING/
WWW.JOURNALOFCOMPUTING.ORG

power required. This is achieved at the
expense of increased backhaul
requirements. Key issues for consideration
are base station cell sizes, backhaul
method (including wireless, fiber and Free
space optical), and potential use of
enterprise and femto-cell technologies.
The optimum tradeoff will minimize
overall energy use, bearing in mind the
embodied energy needed for equipment
deployment.
Another possible approach for
energy efficiency is effective Radio
Resource Management and Signal
Processing which may reduce the radiated
power requirement to maintain the
required QoS. Control of interference is
the key to energy efficiency. A given data
throughput implies a required ratio of
signal to interference level at the receiver.
If interference is reduced, the transmitted
power level can also be reduced while
maintaining performance. Power efficient
hardware implementation of base station
equipment can also facilitate a reduction
in total energy consumed relative to the
radiated power.
In this paper we have focused on the
energy-aware management of cellular
access networks, trying to characterize the
amount of energy that can be saved by
reducing the number of active cells in the
access networks during the periods when
they are not necessary because the
network traffic is low. It is very important
to outline the strategy to conserve overall
power (AC and DC) utilized by wireless
BTSs of mobile phones in lean traffic hours
of the day. In a wireless telecom network,
BTS is an access network element, which
generates Radio Frequency (RF) power by
energizing it through either AC or DC as
input power. BTS in turn provides RF
coverage in a certain limited geographical
area. Since the total number of BTSs
deployed is significantly large, by utilizing
innovative techniques, substantial amount
of energy can be saved during low traffic
hours. This would result in a large
operating expenditure (opex) saving and
at the same time other effects like global
warming and hazardous RF radiations
will also be further minimized.
When some cells are switched off, we
assume that radio coverage and service
provisioning can be taken care of by the
cells that remain active, possibly with
some small increase in the emitted power,
so as to guarantee that service is available
over the whole area. In urban UMTS
scenarios, in the few cases in which the
emitted power must be increased, this
increase is negligible (a few watts) if
compared to the total Node-B energy
consumption and does not induce any
electromagnetic exposure limit violation.
3. Network Strategy
It is very important to out line the strategy
to conserve overall power (AC and DC)
utilized by wireless BTSs of mobile phones
in lean traffic hours of the day.
3.1. Network Design
Telecom network design including BTSs is
done for peak hour traffic. There are more
than one carrier frequencies operating to
meet the demand of the peak hour load on
RF. Normally, busy hours in a day are
from 9 A.M. to10 A.M. or 5P.M.to 6 P.M.
Rest of the time, traffic is less than the
busy hours. During night time, in lean
hours of 12 A.M. to 6A.M., traffic is almost
zero (less than 5%).There are more carrier
frequencies operating during lean hours
than required thereby wasting power, air-
conditioning and RF energy without any
utilization.
3.2. Techniques/ Measures to
Reduce the BTS Power
Consumption
JOURNAL OF COMPUTING, VOLUME 3, ISSUE 2, FEBRUARY 2011, ISSN 2151-9617 198
HTTPS://SITES.GOOGLE.COM/SITE/JOURNALOFCOMPUTING/
WWW.JOURNALOFCOMPUTING.ORG

The optimum reduction in power can be

A B C D
achieved by adopting the following
5 55 4 69
methodology:-
4 50 3 67
a) For the ratio of the total amount 3 45 2 68
of RF radiation to energy 2 35 1 70
consumed, substantial amount of
power can be saved if lesser
utilized carrier is 'switched OFF'
or related hardware is forced into Figure 1- BTS Carrier switching OFF
‘power saving mode’ during lean logic
hours by transferring the traffic A= No of carriers in service
to another under utilized carrier. B= Threshold of % RF utilization for 'switching
The traffic shall be measured OFF' one carrier
every five minutes and the excess C= No of carriers in service after the upper most
RF utilization is determined. The carrier is ‘switched OFF’ D=Corresponding % RF
carrier frequency shall be utilization after carrier is 'switched OFF’
‘switched ON’ or ‘switched OFF’
as per ‘excess RF utilization'.
Following Figure (Figures 1 & 2) ‘Switching ON Logic’
is illustrative example showing
‘switching ON’ and ‘switching
OFF’ logic with five carrier A B C D
frequencies: - 1 70 2 30
2 75 3 50
b) Only the first carrier remains 3 80 4 60
“switched ON” and remaining of 4 80 5 64
the carriers are ‘switched OFF’
Figure 2- BTS Carrier
during night hours i.e. 12:00 A.M.
Switching ON logic
to 6:00 A.M. so as to operate the
BTS in Just Enough Capacity
(JEC) configuration. Night hours
A= No of carriers in service
will vary from East to West, from
B= Threshold of % RF utilization for 'switching ON'
urban to rural area and also from
one carrier
the tariff plan applicable in that
C= No of carriers in service after the next carrier is
particular region/SDCA. Here, it
‘switched ON’
is to be noted that the subsequent
D= Corresponding % RF utilization after carrier is
carriers are ‘switched ON’ if
'switched ON’
certain exigencies arise like day
and night cricket match, events of
national or societal importance
c) The following graphs (Figure 3 & 4)
etc.
depict the ON/OFF sequence and RF
Power utilization respectively

‘Switching OFF Logic’

 JOURNAL OF COMPUTING, VOLUME 3, ISSUE 2, FEBRUARY 2011, ISSN 2151-9617 199
HTTPS://SITES.GOOGLE.COM/SITE/JOURNALOFCOMPUTING/
WWW.JOURNALOFCOMPUTING.ORG

state will be adequate to cater to

Power-ON/ OFF sequence of BTS the traffic. There will be no
6 degradation of services due to
No of carriers for Power ON
‘switching OFF’ action.
5 No of carriers for Power OFF
b) The ‘switched OFF’ equipment
4 should be brought into ‘switched
No of carriers

ON’ state in least possible time

3 latest within a minute or so.
c) ‘Switching OFF’ and ‘switching
2
ON’ will not have any adverse
1
impact on equipment life.
d) In CDMA, at least one carrier will
0 always be ‘ON’. In GSM,
minimum traffic channels can be
25
45
65
85
5

5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
10
12
14
16
18
20
22
24
26
28
30
32
34
36
38
Total traffic kept ‘ON’ depending upon
Figure 3 hardware configuration but
BTS Carrier Switching ON/OFF logic definitely not less than one
Traffic on X-axis is total BTS traffic transmission per sector.
Utilization in % with per carrier full, utilization taken as e) These techniques illustrate and
100 % operate the BTS in Just Enough
Capacity (JEC) configuration in a
RF utilization simplistic manner which is very
90 easy to implement. The
80
functioning of the BTSs has been
attempted at an atomic level of a
70
carrier or transmission in lean
Utilization per carrier

hours so as to derive optimum

60

50 power saving. As and when the

40 technology is available to operate
30 the BTSs in multiples of traffic
RF utilization per carrier for Power ON
20 sequence channels then, in future other
RF utilization per carrier for Power OFF power saving logic can be
10 sequence
included in the ‘switch ON’ and
0
‘switch OFF’ states to keep the
power usage always just
25
45
65
85
5

5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
10
12
14
16
18
20
22
24
26
28
30
32
34
36
38

Figure 4
BTS RF Power Utilization
Traffic on X-axis is total BTS traffic
Utilization in % with per carrier full
Utilization taken as 100 %, Utilization on
Y-axis is in %
3.3. Implementation Guide lines
While implementing the above mentioned
techniques, the following basic guide lines
have to be followed: -
a)
Total traffic
After ‘switching OFF’ the balance
hardware, the carriers in ‘ON’
adequate.
3.4. Execution Strategy
This is based upon running an automated
software script in the Base Station System
comprising of Base Station Controller
(BSC), BTS and Operations and
Maintenance Center Radio (OMC R). The
script automatically starts at the pre-
selected time, operates the BTS in Just
Enough Capacity (JEC) configuration in
the lean hours say from 12 A.M. to 6 A.M
and brings back the operation of the BTS
into standard capacity configuration
meant for the rest of the day.
JOURNAL OF COMPUTING, VOLUME 3, ISSUE 2, FEBRUARY 2011, ISSN 2151-9617
HTTPS://SITES.GOOGLE.COM/SITE/JOURNALOFCOMPUTING/
WWW.JOURNALOFCOMPUTING.ORG
The Profile of BTS Operating in Normal
Capacity Configuration and Successive
Just Enough Capacity Configuration is
shown in Figure 5.
Terms and abbreviations used in fig. 5:
BTS -Base Trans-receiver Station
BSC – Base Station Controller
BSS – Base Station System
OMC R – Operations and Maintenance
Center Radio
Saving of avg. power per BTS per hour =
500 Watt.
Power reduction duration = 6 hours
per day.
No of year = 1 (365 days)
Charges per unit = INR 4.5
Number of BTS = 100,000
Total amount saved in INR = 0.5 x 6 x
365 x 4.5 x 100,000 = INR 49.27 Cr.
4. Advantages of Power
Conservation
By utilizing the power conservation
techniques, a significant amount of opex
can be saved per year. For example at the
most conservative estimates, saving 500
watts of power per BTS per day can lead
to a minimum saving of approximately
INR 50 Cr per year for the 100,000 BTSs in
operation. All other savings which would
accrue on account of reduced operations
of Air Conditioner (AC) and discount due
to less demand of power from the State
Electricity Board (SEB) would be
additional.
200
a) RF radiation hazards to human
health can be reduced to a greater
extent.
b) This simple innovation will
reduce the global warming by
minimizing the carbon emissions
and RF radiations from more
than 4 million BTSs in the world
operating 24 hours a day.
5. Conclusion
The mobile subscribers are increasing at a
phenomenal rate worldwide.
Wireless BTSs are going to increase by
leaps and bound as developing countries
start expanding their 2 G networks and
developed countries start deploying 3G
and 4G networks. It is time to adopt
standards based in built technological
mechanism to allow automatic functioning
of BTSs in JEC configuration rather than
always function in a configuration to cater
for peak hour’s traffic. By doing so we can
ensure good amount of power saving i.e,
say approx .Rs50 Crore INR per year.
Indirectly we will also be ensuring a
reduction in the RF radiation hazards to
human health. Since the total number of
BTSs deployed is significantly large, by
utilizing innovative techniques,
substantial amount of energy can be saved
during low traffic hours. This would result
in a large operating expenditure (opex)
saving and at the same time other effects
like global warming and hazardous RF
radiations will also be further minimized.
JOURNAL OF COMPUTING, VOLUME 3, ISSUE 2, FEBRUARY 2011, ISSN 2151-9617 201
HTTPS://SITES.GOOGLE.COM/SITE/JOURNALOFCOMPUTING/
WWW.JOURNALOFCOMPUTING.ORG

f1

f2
f3

f4
f5

BTS

f1
f1
f2
f3

f4
BTS
BTS

Power Consumption
5 kW 4 kW 3 kW 2 kW 1 kW

f1
f1 f2
f2 Legend
f3

BTS

BTS

Figure 5 : Profile of BTS Operating in Normal Capacity Configuration and Successive Just Enough Capacity Configuration
JOURNAL OF COMPUTING, VOLUME 3, ISSUE 2, FEBRUARY 2011, ISSN 2151-9617 202
HTTPS://SITES.GOOGLE.COM/SITE/JOURNALOFCOMPUTING/
WWW.JOURNALOFCOMPUTING.ORG

This paper appears in:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:
Telecommunications Energy Conference,
I sincerely thank UNIVERSITY SCHOOL 2007. INTELEC 2007. 29th International,
OF ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY, Issue Date: Sept. 30 2007-Oct. 4 2007, on
Guru Govind Singh Indraprastha page(s): 475 - 476, Location: Rome
University, New Delhi for providing the Print ISBN: 978-1-4244-1627-1, INSPEC
opportunity and guidance for research Accession Number: 9810373, Digital Object
work. Identifier 10.1109/INTsLEC.2007.4448824,
Date of Current Version: 08 February
2008
REFERENCES
[1] The website of Telecom Regulatory
Authority of India
http://www.trai.gov.in [Accessed 01
Sept. 2009].

[2] The website of Mahanagar Telephone

Nigam Ltd. http://www.mtnl.in
[Accessed 01 Sept. 2009].

[3]. Tingwu Wang; Haige Xiang;”System

capacity and power control of satellite
mobile communication” Communication
Technology Proceedings, 1996. ICCT’96. 1996
International Conference on 5-7 May 1996
Page(s):305 - 310 vol.1

[4] Energy Efficient Radio Access

Architectures for Green Radio: Large
versus Small Cell Size Deployment, Badic,
B.; O'Farrrell, T.; Loskot, P.; He, J.; Sch.
of Eng., Swansea Univ., Swansea, UK, This
paper appears in: Vehicular Technology
Conference,Fall (VTC 2009-Fall), 2009 IEEE
70th ,Issue Date: 20-23 Sept. 2009 ,On
page(s): 1 - 5 ,Location: Anchorage, AK
,ISSN: 1090-3038 ,Print ISBN: 978-1-4244-
2514-3 ,INSPEC Accession Number:
11059180 ,Digital Object Identifier:
10.1109/VETECF.2009.5379035, Date of
Current Version: 12 January 2010

[5]. New Models for BTS Energy Savings

Strategies, This paper appears in:
Telecommunications Energy Conference
(INTELEC), 32nd International ,Issue Date
: 6-10 June 2010 ,On page(s): 1 - 4
,Location: Orlando, FL, USA
E-ISBN : 978-1-4244-3384-1,Print
ISBN: 978-1-4244-3383-4 ,Digital Object
Identifier: 10.1109/INTLEC.2010.5525710,D
ate of Current Version : 26 July 2010

[6]. Energy efficiency of modern cellular

base stations,