Vodafone Trials New Energy-Saving 5G Mobile Antennas and Software

Mobile network operator Vodafone has revealed that, in an “industry-first“, they’ve managed to achieve energy-savings of up to 10% using new software and hardware-based power saving techniques, as well as an additional 20% reduction with next generation radios.

The trial, which uses new radio antennas and advanced engineering, essentially allows Vodafone to dynamically add capacity to match demand, “ensuring customers receive uninterrupted fast connectivity while making more efficient use of network resources” and reducing unnecessary power consumption. This also means that mobile sites can run for longer when forced to use backup power (e.g. during power cuts), which aids resilience.

In maximum energy-saving mode, the radio antenna can operate using as little as 10 watts of power – only a little bit more than a regular LED light bulb – while returning to full capacity in approximately 30 seconds. Throughout this process, uninterrupted service continues to be delivered over the low- and mid-band frequencies.

Full network capacity can then be reached by reactivating Massive MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output) radios using the 3.5GHz spectrum band. In fast response mode, the radios operate at 50 watts and can return to full performance in less than 5 seconds, ensuring additional network capacity is available whenever traffic demand increases.

Marco Zangani, Director of Network Strategy and Architecture, Vodafone, said:

“I’m proud that we have been able to continuously push energy efficiency to its limits by switching off our radio units for very short periods, yet restore them to full operation within seconds. This helps us deliver a great mobile experience for customers while saving power and improving resilience during emergencies.”

The trial is currently taking place in Türkiye and Vodafone intend to continue to test and refine the technology (it’s unclear whether or when they might deploy it commercially). Sadly the update is quite vague on the specific enhancements being adopted for this, which is a shame because the general description given makes it sound a lot like the sort of measures that we’ve already seen other UK mobile operator introduce.