End-to-End Power Models for 5G Radio Access Network Architectures with a Perspective on 6G

Bhuvaneshwar Doorgakant, Tulsi Pawan Fowdur and Mobayode O. Akinsolu ()
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Bhuvaneshwar Doorgakant: Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Mauritius, Réduit 80837, Mauritius
Tulsi Pawan Fowdur: Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Mauritius, Réduit 80837, Mauritius
Mobayode O. Akinsolu: Faculty of Arts, Computing and Engineering, Wrexham University, Wrexham LL11 2AW, UK

Mathematics, 2025, vol. 13, issue 3, 1-36

Abstract: 5G, the fifth-generation mobile network, is predicted to significantly increase the traditional trajectory of energy consumption. It now uses four times as much energy as 4G, the fourth-generation mobile network. As a result, compared to previous generations, 5G’s increased cell density makes energy efficiency a top priority. The objective of this paper is to formulate end-to-end power consumption models for three different 5G radio access network (RAN) deployment architectures, namely the 5G distributed RAN, the 5G centralized RAN with dedicated hardware and the 5G Cloud Centralized-RAN. The end-to-end modelling of the power consumption of a complete 5G system is obtained by combining the power models of individual components such as the base station, the core network, front-haul, mid-haul and backhaul links, as applicable for the different architectures. The authors considered the deployment of software-defined networking (SDN) at the 5G Core network and gigabit passive optical network as access technology for the backhaul network. This study examines the end-to-end power consumption of 5G networks across various architectures, focusing on key dependent parameters. The findings indicate that the 5G distributed RAN scenario has the highest power consumption among the three models evaluated. In comparison, the centralized 5G and 5G Cloud C-RAN scenarios consume 12% and 20% less power, respectively, than the Centralized RAN solution. Additionally, calculations reveal that base stations account for 74% to 78% of the total power consumption in 5G networks. These insights helped pioneer the calculation of the end-to-end power requirements of different 5G network architectures, forming a solid foundation for their sustainable implementation. Furthermore, this study lays the groundwork for extending power modeling to future 6G networks.

Keywords: 5G; 6G; base station; energy efficiency; power models; RAN architectures; SDN (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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