Fundamental trade-offs on green wireless networks

TLDR

Traditional mobile wireless networks focus on ubiquitous access and large capacity, but growing energy‑saving and environmental demands are driving a shift toward energy‑efficiency‑oriented green radio design. The authors propose a framework that consolidates scattered green radio research issues. The framework’s skeleton comprises four fundamental trade‑offs—deployment efficiency vs. energy efficiency, spectrum efficiency vs.

Abstract

Traditional mobile wireless network mainly design focuses on ubiquitous access and large capacity. However, as energy saving and environmental protection become global demands and inevitable trends, wireless researchers and engineers need to shift their focus to energy-efficiency-oriented design, that is, green radio. In this article, we propose a framework for green radio research and integrate the fundamental issues that are currently scattered. The skeleton of the framework consists of four fundamental tradeoffs: deployment efficiency-energy efficiency, spectrum efficiency-energy efficiency, bandwidth-power, and delay-power. With the help of the four fundamental trade-offs, we demonstrate that key network performance/cost indicators are all strung together.