Abstract—The deployment of new network equipment is resulting
in increasing energy consumption in mobile broadband
networks (MBNs). This contributes to higher CO2 emissions.
Over the last 10 years MBNs have grown considerably, and are
still growing to meet the evolution in traffic volume carried in
wireless networks. To save energy in MBNs, one of the options
is to turn off parts of the network equipment in areas where
traffic falls below a specific predefined threshold. This paper
looks at a methodology for identifying periods of the day when
cells or sites carrying low traffic are candidates for being totally
or partly switched off, given that the decrease in service quality
can be controlled gracefully when the sites are switched off. Based
on traffic data from an operational network, potential average
energy savings of approximately 30% with some few low traffic
cells/sites reaching up to 99% energy savings can be identified.