Energy Performance of 5G-NX Wireless Access

Utilizing Massive Beamforming and an Ultra-lean

System Design
Sibel Tombaz∗ , Pål Frenger∗ , Fredrik Athley∗ , Eliane Semaan∗ , Claes Tidestav∗ and Anders Furuskär∗
∗ Ericsson
Research, Ericsson AB, Sweden
Email: {sibel.tombaz, pal.frenger, fredrik.athley, eliane.semaan, claes.tidestav, anders.furuskar}@ericsson.com

Abstract—This paper presents the energy performance of a in energy consumption by extending the capabilities beyond
new radio access technology (RAT) component in 5G, here previous generations. In contrast to earlier generations, 5G
denoted as 5G-NX. The 5G-NX RAT encompasses massive beam- wireless access is not a specific radio access technology;
forming and an ultra-lean design as two of its key technology
components. The user throughput, resource utilization of the rather it is an overall wireless access solution addressing the
cells and daily average area power consumption are evaluated by various requirements of mobile communication. Today, we
means of system level simulations in an Asian city scenario, and foresee that the overall 5G wireless access consists of two key
the results are compared with a traditional LTE deployment using elements; backwards-compatible LTE evolution, and the new
the same network layout. The simulation results indicate that the radio access technology, here denoted NX, which initially will
new 5G-NX system provides much better energy performance
compared to LTE and this is primarily due to the ultra-lean be deployed at new spectrum, primarily above 6 GHz, mainly
design and the high beamforming gain that provides both longer due to the availability of larger bandwidth. More specifically
and more efficient component sleep in the network. At expected 5G-NX is the non-backwards compatible air interface in 5G,
traffic levels beyond 2020, 5G-NX is shown to decrease the providing higher flexibility to achieve the 5G requirements [2].
network energy consumption by more than 50% while providing In this paper, we evaluate the energy performance of 5G-
around 10 times more capacity.
Index Terms— Massive beamforming, 5G, NX, power model, NX at various capacity requirements considering two of its key
energy efficiency, green wireless networks, system level simula- technology components: massive beamforming and ultra-lean
tion. design. Beamforming is a critical component to counter the
more challenging propagation conditions at higher frequencies
I. I NTRODUCTION and enable very high bit rates [2]–[4]. The ultra-lean design of
5G-NX minimizes any transmissions not related to the delivery
In recent years, operators have been facing an exponential
of user data and thus enables base stations (BSs) to sleep
traffic growth due to the proliferation of portable devices that
for longer consecutive time durations when the network is
use high-capacity connectivity [1]. This situation continuously
idle [2], [4]. Combined with beamforming, which effectively
pushes operators to expand their networks in order to increase
increases the user data rate and hence provides shorter packet
capacity in the network. Since the average revenue per user
transmission times, we show in this paper that this has a
does not grow as quickly, this increases the significance of
significant effect on the amount of time the network nodes can
expanding the network capacity using highly cost effective
operate in a very low energy consuming sleep state. The tech-
solutions. Another consequence of the rapid increase in data
nology potential of using these components to enhance energy
traffic is that the network energy consumption will continue
performance of wireless access is quantified and compared
to increase, unless concerted countermeasures are taken. For
with legacy LTE deployments using system level simulations.
a long time the network energy consumption was not a sig-
The outline of the paper is as follows. Section II introduces
nificant concern for operators and vendors. This has changed
the two key technology components of 5G-NX systems that are
dramatically over the last couple of years as concerns with
the prime focus of this paper. The system model and network
environmental sustainability, energy security and cost have
layout are presented in Section III. The energy performance
emerged on the agenda. For telecom vendors, energy consump-
evaluation methodology and the power consumption models
tion is today a key performance indicator on par with spectrum
for LTE and 5G-NX systems are explained in Section IV.
efficiency and it is recognized as a key factor to improve in
Finally Section V presents the simulation results and Section
order to reduce product volume and weight. Operators today
VI concludes the paper.
also realize that building a best performing network includes
ensuring the best user experience as well as ensuring that their II. 5G W IRELESS ACCESS
network has the best energy performance.
5G wireless access will be required to handle this energy A. UE Specific Beamforming
and user experience challenge, and provide connectivity for A key technical component of 5G is user equipment (UE)
a wide range of new applications with a dramatic reduction specific beamforming. This has the potential to mitigate the
increased propagation loss at higher frequencies and increase
the performance by a more spatially focused transmission and
reception [2]–[4].
In this paper, a grid-of-beams (GoB) beamforming concept
is considered. For downlink transmission, dual-stream trans-
mission is utilized, using dual-polarized antennas. The beam
grid is created by applying discrete Fourier transform (DFT)
weight vectors over the antenna elements. The beamforming
is separable in azimuth and elevation so that separate DFT
vectors are applied over the antenna array columns and rows.
In each antenna dimension (horizontal and vertical) the DFT
is oversampled by a factor two, i.e., there are twice as many
beams as antenna elements in each dimension. For a 5x20
array, this amounts to 400 beams in the grid.
For each UE, the beam in the grid that gives the highest
beamforming gain is selected. The beamforming gain for a
candidate beam in a given cell is proportional to the power
that would be received by the UE if that beam was used for
transmission. This is calculated according to equation below:

Pr = w H R w (1)
where w is the candidate beamforming weight vector and
R is the channel covariance matrix between the BS antenna
elements and the first antenna on the UE.
Here, the channel covariance matrix is calculated by us-
ing the propagation models introduced in Section III.B. We
assumed that the antenna array at the BS has dual-polarized
antenna elements and that UE-specific beamforming is per-
formed per polarization and that the two polarizations enable Fig. 1. City model in the evaluation area (top) and site deployment in the
entire simulation area (bottom).
dual-layer transmission/reception.
B. Ultra-lean Design
In this scenario, 80% of the traffic is assumed to be generated
The basic principle of ultra-lean design is to minimize any inside the buildings.
transmissions not related to the delivery of user data. Such
transmissions include the signals for synchronization, idle- B. Propagation Model
mode mobility and system and control information [2], [4]. The propagation model is composed of several sub-models
This solution not only improves the system performance by taking into account free space propagation in line-of-sight,
reducing the interference of non-user-data related transmis- diffraction, scattering modeling in non-line-of-sight, building
sions, but also presents a great opportunity for better energy penetration loss (BPL), and indoor loss. The basis for each
performance by enabling network nodes to stay at low-energy of these sub-models has been taken by selecting appropriate
states in longer durations. models described in the COST 231 Final Report [5].
In addition, frequency-dependent models for BPL and in-
III. N ETWORK L AYOUT AND S YSTEM M ODEL
door loss are adopted based on [6] with some modifications
A. Network Layout as described below. In this model, the building penetration
We consider an Asian city scenario (i.e., inspired by Tokyo loss is defined based on the type of the building characterized
and Seoul) with an area of 2×2 km where there are 1442 by building material (e.g. the percentage of concrete walls
multi-floor buildings with different heights (i.e., distributed and glass walls, the thickness and type of the walls, etc.).
between 16m and 148m) as shown in Fig. 1. We assume that Two different building types are considered, i.e., old and new,
the traffic is served by a macro network with an inner and the former is assumed to consist of 20% two-layered glass
an outer layer, with different inter-site distances and antenna windows and 80% concrete and is more common in the low-
heights. For the inner layer with high rise buildings, 7 three- rise area of the city, whereas the latter consists of 90% infrared
sector macro sites located at rooftop (at average height of 45 reflective glass (IRR) and 10% concrete and has a higher
m) are considered. In the inner layer, the inter-site distance is occurrence in the high-rise area of the city.
200 meters. On the other hand, the outer layer consists of 28 The total loss through the standard glass (Lgw ) and the
three-sector macro sites located at rooftop (at average height coated glass windows (Lcgw ) of the "old" and "new" buildings
of 30 m), corresponding to an inter-site distance of 400 meters. is estimated according to Eq. (2a) and Eq. (2b) respectively.
Eq. (2c) gives the concrete wall loss estimate (Lcw ). Note that In the 5G-NX evaluations, we assume that the UE is served
frequency (f ) is expressed in GHz in the equations. by the best beam, providing the highest received power, in
the entire network. Due to the fact that a search over all
beams in the network for all UE positions creates a huge
Lgw [dB] = 0.2 f + 2 (2a) computational effort in the simulations, we adopt a simplified
Lcgw [dB] = 0.3 f + 23 (2b) approach consisting of a two-stage procedure. In the first step,
Lcw [dB] = 4 f + 5 (2c) the best node is found based on the radiation pattern of a single
antenna element. In the second step, we select the best beam
The indoor environment is assumed to be open, with stan- offered by the node by picking the beam with highest received
dard, alternatively plaster, indoor walls. The loss model per power according to wH R w.
wall is calculated as a function of the carrier frequency and
an average wall distance (Dw ) based on Eq. (3a), (3b) and IV. E NERGY P ERFORMANCE E VALUATION
Eq. (4). The basic approach in the model is to assume different M ETHODOLOGY
values for the indoor loss per meter (L) for indoor distances Traditionally bit/Joule (or traffic served per Watt consumed)
that are below a certain threshold and for those that exceed is used to quantify the energy performance of wireless access
this threshold. networks. Despite its wide-acceptance for link-level perfor-
mance evaluations, the bit/Joule metric is shown to be inade-
0.15 f + 1.35 quate for network-level evaluations [7]. The main reason is that
α1 [dB] = (3a) bit/Joule indicates an improvement with the increased traffic
Dw
α1 despite the fact that energy usage is also increased, though
α2 [dB] = (3b) at a lower rate. Therefore, in this paper, we define energy
0.05 f + 0.7
performance as the daily averaged area power consumption,
represented by W/km2 .
L=

 α1 , if d ≤ dbreak A. Power Consumption Models
α2 , for (d − dbreak ) if d > dbreak and f > 6 (4) In this subsection, we introduce the power consumption

α1 , if d > dbreak and f < 6 models used to evaluate the energy performance of LTE and
lean-carrier based 5G systems.
where Dw is the distance in meters between two walls. 1) Power Consumption Model for LTE: In order to assess
C. Antenna Models the energy consumption of a reference LTE base station, we
use the EARTH power models as defined in [8]. This widely
In the LTE simulations the BS antenna is assumed to be used model constitutes an interface between the component
a standard macro antenna with electrical and mechanical tilt, and network levels, and enables the assessment of energy
with an antenna gain of 18 dBi. No UE-specific beamform- efficiency in wireless access networks. In the model, the total
ing is performed. A Gaussian radiation pattern is modeled power consumption of a BS, when active, is divided into
where the main beam is with 65◦ azimuth half-power beam two parts: (i) The idle power consumption, i.e., the power
width (HPBW) and 6.5◦ elevation HPBW. The same antenna consumed in the BS even when there is no transmission (Ptx
pattern model has been used for 2.6 GHz and 15 GHz. Cell- = 0); (ii) The traffic load dependent power consumption, which
individual tilt values were set based on internally developed is expressed as below:
tilting guidelines. On the other hand the UE is assumed to
LT E
have isotropic antennas with -8 dBi antenna gain. This low PBS =

gain value is used to model shadowing effects close to the ∆p Ptx + P0
 if Ptx > 0
UE. NT RX × P0 if Ptx = 0 (without cell DTX)
In the 5G-NX simulations, the BS antenna is assumed to 
δ P0 if Ptx = 0 (with cell DTX)

be a rectangular array with M×N dual-polarized elements,
where M is the number of columns and N is the number (5)
of rows. The radiation pattern of a single antenna element is where Ptx and NT RX denote the transmit power and the
modeled by Gaussian main beam. The azimuth and elevation number of transceivers, respectively. On the other hand, ∆p
HPBW is 65◦ and 90◦ , respectively, and the gain is 8 dBi. represents the portion of the transmit power dependent power
For the UE antenna, we assume an effective antenna gain of consumption due to feeder losses and power amplifier, whereas
3 dBi by taking into account the UE beamforming capability, P0 accounts for the power consumption because of the active
and reduced shadowing due to physically separated antenna site cooling and the signal processing.
elements. Traditional BSs consume a considerable amount of power
even when there is no user in the cell, i.e, P0 . However, a
D. Node Selection hardware feature called cell discontinuous transmission (cell
In the LTE evaluations, node selection is based on highest DTX) [9], which enables the deactivation of some components
reference signal received power (RSRP). of a BS during the empty transmission time interval (TTIs),
significantly lowers the idle power consumption, i.e., Psleep = hand, ηit represents the resource utilization of the BS i during
NT RX δ P0 , where 0 < δ < 1. given hour t. Here, the resource utilization is defined as
In our LTE evaluations, we accounted for the mandatory the fraction of time-frequency resources that are scheduled
LTE signals for the calculations of sleep mode power con- for data transmission in a given cell during an hour. It also
sumption. Considering the fact that the mandatory transmis- represents the probability of that BS i is transmitting.
sions required by the LTE standard only allows for very We calculate the daily average power consumption by
short consecutive DTX periods (i.e., max 0.2 ms), and thus identifying the resource utilization of each BS in the network
preventing deep sleep in LTE cells, we assume δ=0.84 in our throughout the day using the daily traffic fluctuation pattern
simulations. proposed in [8] for a given peak data traffic demand in the
2) Power Consumption Model for 5G-NX: In order to area (Mbps/km2 ).
assess the power consumption of 5G-NX, we proposed a
simplified power consumption model based on [10], [11], V. S IMULATION S ETUP AND R ESULTS
considering the impact of two key features of 5G-NX systems: In order to assess the energy performance of 5G-NX sys-
i) ultra-lean design (where as little as possible are transmitted tems, we have carried out system level evaluations using the
from an BS when there are no data to transmit); ii) massive- network layout presented in Section III-A. In this section, we
beamforming (which requires hundreds of active antenna ele- first clarify the simulation setup and methodology, and finally
ments), given as: present the simulation results.
5G−N X
PBS =
Ps A. Simulation Setup and Methodology
s
 ε + N P c + PB if Ptx >0
 tx

s In this paper, we consider four different systems for evalu-

Ns × PB if Ptx = 0 (without cell DTX)
 ations:
s
δ PB if Ptx = 0 (with cell DTX)

• Case 1: [email protected]
(6)
• Case 2: [email protected]+LTE@15
where Ns , N and ε denote the number of sectors in a site, • Case 3: 5G-NX@15
number of RF chains and power amplifier (PA) efficiency • Case 4: [email protected]+5G-NX@15
respectively. Pc represents the additional digital and RF pro- In the baseline scenario, the traffic is assumed to be served
cessing needed for each antenna branch whereas PB is the by an LTE system with 2×2 MIMO configurations operating
baseline power consumption for each sector. Note that here, at 2.6 GHz. This case represents the performance of the
s
unlike in Eq. (5), Ptx denotes the transmit power per sector. current deployed networks. We also consider three futuristic
In this paper, we consider fully digital beamforming. There- systems that are relevant for year 2020 and beyond. Firstly,
fore, the number of RF chains (N ) is twice the number of we assume an LTE carrier aggregation scenario with 140 MHz
dual-polarized antenna elements. total bandwidth of which 40 MHz carrier is at 2.6 GHz and
We assume that the equivalent sleep mode power consump- 100 MHz time division duplex (TDD) carrier is at 15 GHz,
tion of a 5G-NX BS is lower compared to an LTE BS due to each with 2×2 MIMO configurations. The reason for choosing
fact that 5G-NX provides significant reduction in mandatory TDD for the 15 GHz carrier is that spectrum around 15
idle mode transmissions, allowing longer consecutive DTX GHz will probably be unpaired. Additionally, TDD simplifies
periods, up to 99.6 ms. We assume that the longer DTX ratio beamforming since channel reciprocity can be utilized. This
can result in a factor κ lower sleep power consumption of case might represent a transition scenario where LTE has
the hardware components. In this study we will use the value been evolved to allow higher bitrates and carrier frequencies.
δ=0.29 which correspond to κ=2. Moreover, we consider two scenarios using the new, 5G-NX
B. Daily Average Area Power Consumption system which is characterized by UE specific beamforming
and ultra-lean design. In the first scenario, the 5G-NX stand-
Daily average area power consumption is used as the energy alone system is deployed at 15 GHz using an 5×20 antenna
performance indicator which relates the total power consumed array to cope with the traffic demand in the network. In the
in the network throughout a day to the corresponding network second scenario, we assume that 5G-NX@15 GHz is deployed
area, A, which is measured in W/km2 as below: together with the existing [email protected] using carrier aggregation.
The performance of these systems is evaluated considering
P24 PNBS
1 t=1 i=1 Pactive ηit + Psleep (1 − ηit ) the network layout presented in Fig. 1. For the carrier ag-
Parea = . (7) gregation cases, all sites in the network are assumed to have
24 A
the multi-RAT capability. We consider that all systems are
Here NBS is the total number of BSs in the network, Pactive employing a frequency reuse of one, i.e., the same time and
and Psleep denote the power consumption of each BS when frequency resources are used for transmission in each cell, and
it is transmitting and when it is in sleep mode respectively. there is no cooperation among sites. The detailed assumptions
As aforementioned, the power consumption values in Eq. (7) on simulation setup and power consumption parameters are
will be different for LTE and 5G-NX systems. On the other listed in Table I.
 TABLE I
S IMULATION A SSUMPTIONS 200
[email protected]
180 [email protected]+LTE@15
System and Path Loss Parameters

5 th percentile user throughput (Mbps)

5G-NX@15
160
Value [email protected]+5G-NX@15
Parameter
(Case 1 / Case 2 / Case 3 / Case 4) 140
Carrier frequency 2.6 / 2.6+15 / 15,/ 2.6+15 GHz
120
Bandwidth 20 / 40+100 / 100 / 40+100 MHz
Duplex scheme FDD/ FDD+TDD/ TDD/ FDD+TDD 100
UE antenna gain -8 / -8 + -8 / 3 / -8 + 3 dBi
None / None+None / UE specific 80
Beamforming at BS
BF / None + UE specific BF
18dBi / 18 + 18 dBi / Antenna 60
Max BS antenna gain
Array / 18 dBi+Antenna Array
40
Number of UE Rx/Tx branches 2/1
TDD configuration 5 20
Noise figure UE 9 dB
Noise figure BS 2.3 dB 0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 4500
Traffic Model Packet download, equal buffer
Area Traffic Demand [Mbps/km 2 ]
Indoor traffic 80%
Distance between two indoor walls Dw =4 m
Indoor threshold distance dbreak =10 m Fig. 2. 5-percentile DL user throughput vs. area traffic demand for the
Power Consumption Parameters different simulation cases.
Parameter Value
Power slope ζ=4.7
Number of transceivers for LTE NT RX =6 Moreover, we assume that all the BSs have DTX capability
Transmit power per transceivers for LTE Ptx =20 W which means that cells can be put into sleep mode when there
Baseline power consumption for LTE P0 =130 W
Cell DTX performance for LTE δ=0.84 is no traffic. We observe that at traffic levels where [email protected]
Circut power per RF branch 5G-NX
s
Pc =1 W can still serve the traffic with acceptable 5-percentile user
Transmit power per sector for 5G-NX Ptx =40 W
Power amplifier efficiency for 5G-NX ε=25 % throughput (T =200 Mbps/km2 ), carrier aggregation increases
Baseline power consumption for 5G-NX PB =260 W the energy consumption by more than 25 percent. This shows
Cell DTX performance for 5G-NX δ=0.29
that increased static power consumption due to the new system
cannot be compensated by the reduction in dynamic power due
to lower utilization. On the other hand, it is seen that at high
B. User Throughput and Capacity traffic where the [email protected] system is highly utilized (T =450
The end-user performance of the evaluated systems is Mbps/km2 ), carrier aggregation provides a 16% reduction in
illustrated in Fig. 2. Firstly, we observe that 5G-NX system energy consumption, while at the same time providing much
yields significantly improved cell-edge user throughput which better end-user performance. Note that, we haven’t considered
is 5 to 10 times higher compared to baseline LTE system. any long-term sleep mechanisms that enables the activation
Moreover, it is seen that a large capacity improvement is and deactivation of the unused carriers during non-busy hours.
achievable when operating at higher frequencies despite the Fig. 4 shows the daily variation of area power consumption
increased propagation loss. This shows that the beamforming of a 5G-NX system for two cases: i) the BSs don’t have DTX
capability of 5G-NX system, load balancing effect of carrier capability (a BS cannot be put into sleep mode when there
aggregation and availability of larger bandwidth re-gains much is no traffic); ii) the BSs have DTX capability (the baseline
of the SNR loss by going up in frequency. Note also the power consumption of the BSs will be lowered when there is
synergy effect of aggregating LTE at 2.6 GHz with 5G-NX at no traffic in the network). Here we evaluate the system under
15 GHz. Operating stand-alone these systems can maximally two different area traffic demands, i.e., T =750 Mbps/km2
carry around 400 Mbps/km2 and 2300 Mbps/km2 , respectively. (red curve) and T =2500 Mbps/km2 (blue curve) representing
When aggregated they are able to carry more than 3700 different utilization levels in the network. It is seen that area
Mbps/km2 . power consumption varies significantly during the day due
to the high difference between day-night traffic. Moreover
C. Energy Performance we observe that cell DTX brings striking savings in 5G-
Considering the fact that the evaluated systems have differ- NX wireless access, even at higher traffic, where up to 67%
ent performance under the same traffic conditions, we conduct saving is feasible during least busy hours due to two main
energy performance evaluations using the methodology intro- reasons. The first reason is that ultra-lean design increases
duced in Section IV. In Fig. 3, we illustrate the daily average the DTX duration by 500 times compared to LTE systems
area power consumption of the baseline [email protected] system and enabling much lower sleep power consumption as explained
the carrier aggregation scenario where LTE@15 is deployed in Section IV. Secondly, 5G-NX wireless access provides very
together with the legacy LTE system operating at 2.6 GHz in high beamforming gain and the possibility to use very wide
order to improve the user throughput with wider bandwidth. transmission bandwidths, which increase the user throughput
Here we assume that static power consumption of a site will significantly. As a result, the same traffic is served in shorter
be increased by 45% when the LTE@15 system is deployed time compared to LTE systems, enabling longer time for sleep.
due to additional RF components and PA power consumption. Table II presents the achievable energy savings in percentage
 Daily Average Area Power Consumption [kW/km2]
16
[email protected] 750 Mbps/km2 − Without Cell DTX
12 16%
[email protected]+LTE@15 decrease 14 750 Mbps/km2 − With Cell DTX
2

Area Power Consumptipn [kW/km2]

2500 Mbps/km − Without Cell DTX
10 25% 11%
increase
12 2500 Mbps/km2 − With Cell DTX
35% decrease
increase
8 10

8
6
6
67%
4 decrease
4

2
2

0 0
95.0 Mbps/km2 200.0 Mbps/km2 450.0 Mbps/km2 0 5 10 15 20 25
Time [h]

Fig. 3. Energy performance comparison of [email protected] and [email protected]+LTE@15 Fig. 4. Daily variation of area power consumption for two different traffic
systems at various traffic levels. levels for 5G-NX@15.

from carrier aggregation solutions in order to reduce the energy

at different traffic levels considering the average area power consumption.
consumption throughout a day with and without cell DTX. As At moderate traffic levels (450 Mbps/km2 ), we know
expected, the savings are shown to be lower at high traffic from Fig. 2 that the [email protected] system is highly utilized,
demands due to the fact that the BSs are highly utilized, and and thus the user performance is significantly degraded. This
therefore load-dependent power consumption dominates the also increases the dynamic power consumption significantly
total power consumption. as shown in Fig. 5b. In this scenario, both 5G-NX system
Finally, we compare the energy performance of the four and carrier aggregation solutions are able to provide more
evaluated systems at various area traffic demands shown than 70 Mbps cell-edge user throughput with lower energy
in Fig. 5. Here we illustrate the daily average area power consumption, where the 5G-NX system is the most energy
consumption in two parts: i) static (power consumed even efficient system providing 73% energy saving. It should be
when there is no traffic), and ii) dynamic (power consumed noted that the reason behind the higher energy consumption in
based on the served traffic). [email protected]+5G-NX@15 is the high static power consumption
In Fig. 5a, we observe that when the traffic is low (95 of the LTE layer. At 450 Mbps/km2, we observe that the
Mbps/km2 ), 5G-NX wireless access enables up to 65% energy LTE layer is responsible of more than 60% of the total power
saving compared to [email protected] while increasing the 5-percentile consumption despite the fact that most of the traffic is carried
user throughput around 6 times as shown in Fig. 2. This shows by the 5G-NX@15 layer. This is mainly due to the mandatory
that the reduction in dynamic power consumption due to the transmissions of non-user data related signals in LTE layer
better energy-focusing, and the efficient cell DTX capability which does not allow deeper sleep when there is no traffic.
outweighs the increase in power consumption when the BS Finally, Fig. 5c shows that at expected traffic levels beyond
is active due to the extra circuitry and processing required 2020 (1200 Mbps/km2), 5G-NX reduces the energy consump-
for 100 dual-polarized antenna elements (requiring 200 RF tion by 64% while providing around 10 times more capacity. It
chains per sector). It also highlights the fact that the 5G- should be noted that [email protected] is not at all able to handle this
NX system is not only beneficial at extreme traffic scenarios. high busy hour traffic as can be seen in Figure 2. Therefore,
Furthermore, we observe that that static power consumption the system is fully utilized except the least-busy hours. Here,
strictly dominates the total power consumption for all the we use [email protected] for illustration only. We also observe that
systems. For 5G-NX stand-alone system, it is mainly due to [email protected]+5G-NX@15 can provide more than 100 Mbps user
efficient transmission with beamforming which decreases the throughput with 35% reduction in energy consumption, despite
utilization levels significantly, and thus the dynamic power the comparably energy-inefficient LTE layer. This shows that
consumption. On the other hand, for the other systems, the at high traffic levels, the increase in static power consumption
high sleep power consumption of LTE due to frequent signal- due to the LTE layer is compensated by the reduction in
ing causes the dominance of static power consumption. We dynamic power consumption due to lower utilization.
should also note that in the evaluations of the [email protected]+5G- Note that, in order achieve the aforementioned energy
NX@15 system, we assume that static power consumption is savings, we have to fully utilize all the benefits obtained by
strictly additive, which means that [email protected] and 5G-NX@15 5G-NX wireless access (i.e., high BF gain, higher BW, ultra-
are not able to share any hardware in the same site unlike lean design, etc.) with cell DTX. Therefore, it is essential to
the [email protected]+LTE@15 system. Under these assumptions, we incorporate energy-awareness in the design of 5G-NX systems
observe that traffic levels are not high enough to fully benefit from the start.
 TABLE II Area Traffic Demand: 95 Mbps/km2
14
E NERGY S AVING WITH C ELL DTX AT 5G-NX SYSTEMS . Static
Dynamic
12

Power Consumption [kW/km2]

Area Traffic Demand [Mbps/km2 ] 100 750 1200 2500
10
35% increase

Daily Average Area

24% increase
Daily Average APC
6.76 8.04 8.95 11.34 8
without cell DTX [kW/km2 ]
6
Daily Average APC
2.30 3.84 4.92 8.31 65%
with cell DTX. [kW/km2 ] 4 decrease

Daily Energy Saving [%] 65.9% 46.6% 33.3% 13.3% 2

0
[email protected] [email protected]+LTE@15 5G−NX@15 [email protected]+5G−NX@15

VI. C ONCLUSION (a)

Area Traffic Demand: 450 Mbps/km2
In this paper, we evaluated the energy performance of 5G- 14
Static
NX systems characterized by ultra-lean design and massive 12
Dynamic

Power Consumption [kW/km2]

beamforming, and we compared this with an LTE system in
10
a dense urban (major Asian city) scenario. We also presented

Daily Average Area

novel power consumption models where the sleep power is 8
73%
defined based on the maximum allowed DTX periods by each 6 decrease
system.
4
The results show that 5G-NX systems provide much better
energy performance compared to LTE due to the ultra-lean 2

design and the high beamforming gain, enabling longer and

0
more efficient sleep. At expected traffic levels beyond 2020, [email protected] [email protected]+LTE@15 5G−NX@15 [email protected]+5G−NX@15

5G-NX is shown to decrease the energy consumption by more

(b)
than 50% while providing around 10 times more capacity.
Area Traffic Demand: 1200 Mbps/km2
Furthermore, carrier aggregation was shown to be a promising 14
Static
solution that combines the benefit from higher bandwidth Dynamic
12
and beamforming capabilities at 15 GHz, and the better
Power Consumption [kW/km2]

35%
propagation conditions at 2.6 GHz. As a result, at expected 10 decrease
Daily Average Area

traffic levels beyond 2020, carrier aggregation with 5G-NX 8

64%
decrease
provides superior performance with lower energy consumption
6
despite the comparably energy inefficient LTE layer.
The main focus of future work will be to evaluate the energy 4

saving potential of 5G-NX at country level considering more

2
scenarios, alternative deployments and operating frequencies.
0
[email protected] [email protected]+LTE@15 5G−NX@15 [email protected]+5G−NX@15

R EFERENCES
(c)
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