Green Communications: Principles, Concepts and Practice

Chapter 21Conclusions

Yinan Qi, Muhammad Ali Imran and Rahim Tafazolli

Institute for Communication Systems (ICS), University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, UK

21.1 Summary

This book is divided into two main parts: In the first part, the wireless network aspects of green communication are addressed, including the fundamental, that is, categorization of the concepts, trade-off between energy efficiency and other efficiency metrics, the scales of achieved energy efficiency and the relationship between the embodied energy and the energy saving potentials of the current networks. It also covers not only base station considerations, network planning and management, but other emerging paradigms, such as vehicular networks and Internet of Things (IoT). In the second part, we focus on the energy efficient design and management approaches for wired networks, where Ethernet and optical networks are also discussed. The application, transport and network layer solutions are presented and the standardization efforts are introduced. Generally speaking, almost every individual aspect of green communications from wired and wireless perspectives is touched.

21.1.1 Green Communications in Wireless Networks

Three fundamental approaches for energy saving are identified: introduction of new energy-efficient network elements, improvement of dynamics of the network and employment of sleep mode. However, most of the strategies stemming from these basic approaches only consider the operating energy ...