Green Heterogeneous Small-Cell Networks

Heterogeneous small-cell networks (HetSNets) are considered as a standard part of the future mobile networks in which multiple low-power, low-cost user deployed base stations complement the existing macrocell infrastructure. This paper proposes an energy efficient deployment of the small-cells where the small-cell base stations are arranged around the edge of the reference macrocell and the deployment is referred to as cell-on-edge (COE) deployment. The proposed deployment ensures an increase in the network capacity, reduction in the co-channel interference and carbon footprint of the mobile operations by employing uplink power control. Moreover, in order to calibrate the reduction in CO2 emissions, this paper provides daily CO2 emissions profile for variable traffic loads at different times of the day. Simulation results quantifies the reduction in CO2 emissions and capacity gains of the proposed COE deployment compared to macro-only networks and typical small-cell deployment strategy in which small cells are randomly deployed within a given macrocell.