How do base stations affect mobile cellular network power consumption?

Base stations represent the main contributor to the energy consumption of a mobile cellular network. Since traffic load in mobile networks significantly varies during a working or weekend day, it is important to quantify the influence of these variations on the base station power consumption.

Is there a direct relationship between base station traffic load and power consumption?

The real data in terms of the power consumption and traffic load have been obtained from continuous measurements performed on a fully operated base station site. Measurements show the existence of a direct relationship between base station traffic load and power consumption.

What is the impact of base stations?

The impact of the Base Stations comes from the combination of the power consumption of the equipment itself (up to 1500 Watts for a nowadays macro base station) multiplied by the number of deployed sites in a commercial network (e.g. more than 12000 in UK for a single operator).

What is the largest energy consumer in a base station?

The largest energy consumer in the BS is the power amplifier, which has a share of around 65% of the total energy consumption . Of the other base station elements, significant energy consumers are: air conditioning (17.5%), digital signal processing (10%) and AC/DC conversion elements (7.5%) .

Are radio base stations harmful?

The WHO states: “From all evidence accumulated so far, no adverse short- or long-term health effects have been shown to occur from the RF signals produced by base stations.” (WHO fact sheet “Base stations and wireless technologies”) Mobile phones and mobile devices require a network of radio base stations to function.

How much exposure can a radio base station have?

On the ground, in houses, and other places where people reside, the exposure levels from radio base stations are normally below 1 percent of the limits. Only in the close vicinity of the antennas can the exposure limits sometimes be exceeded.