The project Communicate Green is funded by the Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Technologie (BMWi) and is a collaboration between Deutsche Telekom Laboratories, Ericsson GmbH, Fraunhofer Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V., Universität Paderborn and Technische Universität Berlin.

In order to fulfill today’s high demands on mobile network usage, mobile network providers in Germany have around 100.000 base stations working 24/7. The permanent availability of those network components causes a significant energy consumption. Communicate Green is about implementing an adaptive, context-aware and technology-comprehensive power management in radio networks by maintaining the high quality of experience at the same time. The decision and adaptation algorithms that are going to be implemented throughout the project are going to save energy in mobile networks by dynamically de- and reactivating network components and by reconfiguring the network to user needs based on context information aggregated from network components, end devices and other context sources. Optimizations will be proposed for single and heterogeneous radio technologies as well as for the core network.

With the optimizations being done in the mobile network, we estimate a reduction of the operating time of network components up to 40% – 60%, i.e., a reduction of the carbon dioxide emission up to 328.000 to 1.974.000 tons per year. These expected results show that the projects approach is innovative and promises an enormous reduction of the power consumption in future mobile networks.

Work Packages

The University of Paderborn ‒ Research Group Computer Networks ‒ is mainly involved in work package 3: Dynamic optimization of core network configurations. We also provide input for work package 1: Scenario- and business model-driven system design and work package 4: Testbed-implementation and experimental evaluation. All three work packages will be described in more detail in the following sections.

WP1: Scenario- and business model-driven system design

This work package provides the basis for the following technical work by identifying the relevant scenarios and areas of use. Additionaly, the work package provides a frame for the overall base architecture and develops a concept for the collection and use of applicable context information.

Frederic Beister and Holger Karl are involved in this work package.

WP3: Dynamic optimization of core network configurations

In this work package, the possibilities of virtualization and migration of functions during the operation of mobile core networks are assessed and control protocols are developed. These methods are to be applied to control- and data functions of the core network as well as to additional services offered inside the core network such as caching and cloud services.

Frederic Beister, Martin Dräxer and Holger Karl are involved in this work package.

WP4: Testbed-implementation and experimental evaluation

To test if the methods developed in ComGreen are usable and interoperate with existing technology, this work package implements them in a testbed.

Student participation

There are currently two open positions for student research assistants. There might also be openings for bachelor or masters theses. The possible research and work topics include 

• Simulating mobile core and access networks in Omnet++
• Developing and assessing energy saving strategies for mobile core and access networks

We offer positions in an interesting project with partners from academia and industry. Please contact Martin Dräxler or Frederic Beister for more information