Life is Short: The Impact of Power States on Base Station Lifetime

We study the impact of power state transitions on the lifetime of base stations (BSs) in mobile networks. In particular, we propose a model to estimate the lifetime decrease/increase as a consequence of the application of power state changes. The model takes into account both hardware (HW) parameters, which depend on the materials used to build the device, and power state parameters, that instead depend on how and when power state transitions take place. More in depth, we consider the impact of different power states when a BS is active, and one sleep mode state when a BS is powered off. When a BS reduces the power consumption, its lifetime tends to increase. However, when a BS changes the power state, its lifetime tends to be decreased. Thus, there is a tradeoff between these two effects. Our results, obtained over universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS) and long term evolution (LTE) case studies, indicate the need of a careful management of the power state transitions in order to not deteriorate the BS lifetime, and consequently to not increase the associated reparation/replacement costs.