Optimized network management for energy savings of wireless access networks

In this paper we consider possible energy savings through optimized management of on/off state and transmitted power of access stations according to traffic estimates in different hours of the day or days of the week. We propose an optimization approach based on some ILP models that minimizes energy consumption while ensuring area coverage and enough capacity for guaranteeing quality of service. Proposed models capture system characteristics considering different management constraints that can be considered based on traffic requirements and application scenarios. Energy minimization problems are solved to the optimum or with a gap to the optimum of less than 2.7% on a set of synthetic instances that are randomly generated. Obtained results show that remarkable energy savings, up to more than 50%, can be obtained with the proposed management strategies.