Low Cost Test Bench to Assess Energy Efficiency of Communications Network Equipment

Communication network Quality of Service (QoS) degradation can lead to the consumption of additional energy to exchange information than that needed in normal conditions. If such behavior is known, network management can be more efficient and accurate, permitting to control more efficiently the energy consumption in telecommunication equipments. This study describes a test bench that can simultaneously measure the QoS parameters and energy consumption in telecommunication networks, in different traffic conditions and in different parts and components of a reduced communication network. The implemented test bench allows the accomplishment of different experiments. The QoS and power data can be presented as graphs that correlate them both. The results show that network quality of service degradation imply in more energy consumption compromising Energy Efficiency in the network.