Finding green spots and turning the spectrum dial: Novel techniques for green mobile wireless networks

The information and communication technology (ICT) industry accounts for at least 2% of the world energy consumption [1], [2], and a considerable part of this energy is consumed by cell phone towers. Currently, resources are statically allocated to offer the best service during peak hours. Energy could be saved if the power is allocated adaptively, depending on the current users' demand. We provide an algorithm that minimizes power consumption by selectively turning on or off cell towers and deciding which power to assign to the active ones and what frequencies to use, so as to maintain full coverage and respect users' capacity demands. This algorithm can be executed at regular time intervals to tune up the network adaptively. We ran simulations with real data, and all experiments show that the total power allocated is proportional to the number of active users.