BT says it’s set to cut the energy usage of its EE network by up to 4.5m KWh per year after introducing new ‘cell sleep’ software to its 19,500 mobile sites across the UK.
The software works by putting certain 4G LTE capacity carriers to sleep when the capacity is not needed, based on predicted periods of low traffic which have been established for each site through machine learning.
The system then automatically wakes up during busy periods and is also configured to react to unexpected surges which might occur during scheduled sleep modes – in which event, the carriers wake up within a matter of seconds to serve demand without any interruption to customers.
An even lower power state, ‘deep sleep’, can also be activated if required, for example during overnight periods of extremely low demand.
Both the ‘cell sleep’ and ‘deep sleep’ functionality is provided by the respective RAN equipment supplier on each of EE’s sites. BT Group’s site data is used to inform the statistical algorithms which then autonomously inform the functionality.
Greg McCall, Chief Networks Officer, BT Group, said: “There is huge potential for energy savings across our networks by dynamically matching power consumption against network usage.
“The optimisation and roll-out of cell sleep technology to over 19,500 sites across the UK is a significant milestone in achieving this, and an important development in countering the massive growth in data consumption we’re seeing across our networks.”