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Abstract-Mobile communications are increasingly contributing to global energy consumption. The EARTH (Energy Aware Radio and neTworking tecHnologies) project tackles the important issue of reducing CO2 emissions by enhancing the energy efficiency of cellular mobile networks. EARTH is a holistic approach to develop a new generation of energy efficient products, components, deployment strategies and energy-aware network management solutions. In this paper the holistic EARTH approach to energy efficient mobile communication systems is introduced. Performance metrics are studied to assess the theoretical bounds of energy efficiency as well as the practical achievable limits. A vast potential for energy savings lies in the operation of radio base stations. In particular, base stations consume a considerable amount of the available power budget even when operating at low load. Energy efficient radio resource management (RRM) strategies need to take into account slowly changing daily load patterns, as well as highly dynamic traffic fluctuations. Moreover, various deployment strategies are examined focusing on their potential to reduce energy consumption, whilst providing uncompromised coverage and user experience. This includes heterogeneous networks with a sophisticated mix of different cell sizes, which may be further enhanced by energy efficient relaying and base station cooperation technologies. Finally, scenarios leveraging the capability of advanced terminals to operate on multiple radio access technologies (RAT) are discussed with respect to their energy savings potential.

HIS paper analyzes dynamic base-station sectorization as a potential energy-efficiency enabler technique for mobile networks. By reconfiguring base stations for larger sectors in night time, the service and coverage level of networks can be maintained with fewer radio units. The study focuses on one particular technique, which switches the originally 3-sector sites into omnidirectional, 1-sector sites by connecting the antennas of the 3 sectors to a common radio unit via a 3-way power splitter.The sectorization-switching algorithm is tested in dynamic simulation experiments. The performances from three scenarios are compared: a) load and performance dependent sector switching mode, b) all base stations are in constant 3-sector mode, c) all base stations are in constant omnidirectional mode.The experiments show that a reasonable compromise can be worked out between the contradicting objectives, namely, saving energy during night-time operation while maintaining a guaranteed service quality.

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