A practical approach for base station on/off switching in green LTE-A HetNets

Abstract

This paper describes a method for BS on/off switching in LTE-Advanced (LTE-A). The proposed method uses information exchanged between base stations (BSs) on the X2 interface in order to determine the BSs that should be switched on or off. It does not require centralized intelligence controlling the on/off switching in the network. Instead, it relies on always active coverage BSs that control the on/off switching of capacity BSs within their coverage area. Hence, it can be implemented locally in a distributed way. Simulation results show that the proposed switch off method can lead to significant energy savings in the network.