Optimal Operation of Base Stations With Deep Sleep and Discontinuous Transmission

Abstract

Traffic-aware base station (BS) sleeping is a promising approach to increase the energy efficiency (EE) of cellular networks. Both deep sleep and discontinuous transmission (DTX) can be applied to improve network EE. This paper studies the optimal BS operation when both deep sleep and DTX are employed. Queuing theory and stochastic geometry theory are jointly applied to model network performance considering both traffic dynamics and stochastic channel quality. We firstly propose a scaling law of transmit power that assures network coverage. Then, we characterize the resource utilization of active BSs when various percentages of BSs are switched into deep sleep, and analyze the overload probability of the remaining active BSs. Finally, we investigate the impact of BS deep sleep and DTX micro sleep on network EE. Both analytical and simulation results show that there is a tradeoff between deep sleep and DTX micro sleep. Switching BSs into deep sleep would increase the load of the remaining active BSs and reduce their energy saving achieved with DTX. When the power consumption of BS in DTX micro-sleep mode is considerably low, switching BSs into deep sleep might increase the overall energy consumption, and it is not always the best practice to switch as many BSs into deep sleep as possible to maximize network EE.