Energy-Efficient Cellular Network Operation Via Base Station Cooperation

The rising cost of energy and increased environmental awareness has sparked a keen interest in the development and deployment of energy-efficient communication technologies. The energy efficiency of cellular networks can be increased significantly by selectively switching off some of the Base Stations (BSs) during periods of low traffic load. In this paper, the authors propose a scalable BS switching strategy and use cooperative communications and power control to extend network coverage to the service areas of the switched-off BSs.