Energy-efficiency-aware upgrade of network capacity

Energy efficiency of a network, defined as the number of bits transmitted per unit of consumed energy, increases with the traffic load for a constant network capacity. This comes from the fact that energy is composed of two components: a fixed one, consumed by the network regardless of the traffic load, and a variable one, which depends on the traffic load. And so, when traffic load increases, the fixed component gets amortized. However, a network upgrade, namely adding more equipment in the network to fit traffic increase, comes typically with a higher increase in capacity than traffic, at least for a while after the upgrade, as traffic previsions are based on relatively long term projections. Thus, the power consumption of the network would increase faster than the traffic, and energy efficiency would then decrease. We investigate in this work the conditions under which a network upgrade does not deteriorate its energy efficiency. We consider two ways of upgrading a network: either by adding equipment with the same technology or by deploying equipment with another technology, typically more recent and more efficient. We discuss in both cases the number of equipment to be added so that to preserve the network's energy performance.