The impact of cell selection on the energy efficiency of heterogeneous networks

Abstract

The growth of the information, communication and telecommunication (ICT) industry is on the ascendancy. The proliferation of mobile devices and other web-based applications has compelled ICT industries to deploy more resource towards capacity expansion and improved quality of service. This singular act has triggered an upsurge in both energy consumption and carbon emission within the mobile cellular industry. As a result, current research efforts within the mobile wireless network are tailored towards improving the energy efficiency of network components and systems. One promising solution comes through the deployment of a heterogeneous network. In this work, the impact of cell selection techniques on the overall network performance of a heterogeneous network is investigated. The overall simulation results reveal that efficient cell selection influences a better performance in energy efficiency and area energy efficiency of such a network.

Keywords:

• cell selection
• energy efficiency
• heterogeneous network
• macrocell
• picocell

Acknowledgement

This paper is derived from the Master’s thesis (2015) of the first author. The authors wish to acknowledge the University of Vaasa for the research support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).