Nokia Siemens Networks unveiled the first phase of its environmentally sustainable business solutions by announcing plans to significantly improve the energy efficiency of its wireless networks, particularly the base stations and base station sites.
The four main elements of the solution are:
- minimizing the number of base station sites;
- minimizing the need for air conditioning to cool the sites;
- using the latest base station technology; and,
- deploying software features that optimize the use of radio access for wireless communications.
The company estimates energy consumption of a base station site can be reduced by up to 70 percent. Building a network with a minimum number of base station sites further increases energy efficiency. This can be achieved with software features to increase coverage.
Reducing or eliminating the need for air conditioning for base station equipment is another opportunity to increase efficiency. By increasing the ambient temperature to up to 40˚C, energy consumption can be reduced by up to 30 percent in existing base station equipment.
Nokia Siemens Networks utilizes a wide range of software features to improve base station energy efficiency by balancing consumption according to load. For example, because nighttime base-station traffic is much lower than during peak daytime hours, part of the base station can be shut down or its capacity can be set on power save mode at night.
Finally, in terms of base station power consumption, Nokia Siemens Networks has achieved levels of 800W and 500W respectively for typical GSM and WCDMA base stations. Going forward, the company has set even more ambitious targets: to further reduce the energy consumption of its GSM and WCDMA base stations to the 650W and 300W respectively by 2010.
http://www.nsn.com
