To satisfy the increasing demands for high bandwidths, mobility and reliability, high density of access points (APs) are being deployed rapidly in public area, universities, hospitals etc. However, due to the always-on usage model of these APs, huge amount of power is being wasted during low traffic. In this paper, we consider possible energy savings through dynamically turning off the APs. We exploit the knowledge of the distance between the User Equipment’s (UEs) and APs for powering off certain APs. Our proposed algorithms are thoroughly evaluated by means of ns-2 simulations. The result shows a significant reduction in power consumption, without compromising Quality of Service (QoS).

APs, energy efficiency, on/off switching, RSSI, sleep mode, WLAN.