Energy consumption of telecommunication access networks

4 Data basis According to the general approach, the energy/power consumption of the different access technologies will be examined for a specific model region. Therefore, a data basis is needed, which allows a geographically referenced and statistical analysis. First the model region has to be chosen. This region should cover rural to urban settlement structures and should include business parks as well. Furthermore, information about the existing access network should be obtainable. All these requirements could be achieved in a region in North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany), which consists of six municipalities. Because of non-disclosure agreements, the model region had to be anonymised and the municipalities are now named A to F. This also applies to other internal information, which were provided by various companies. Model region Population (approx.) Area (approx. [km 2 ]) Population density (approx. [Pop./km 2 ]) A 6,500 40 163 B 11,800 40 295 C 13,700 49 280 D 9,400 52 181 E 7,200 59 122 F 8,100 58 140 Total 56,700 298 190 Figure 6: The table shows data of the model region and its six municipalities. All municipalities are comparatively small in their population and spatial expansion. However, these regions are typical for the German settlement structures outside the metropolitan areas like Berlin, Frankfurt, Cologne or the Ruhr valley. The population density differs between approximately 122 and 295 people per km² (see Figure 6). As Figure 7 shows, the population density inside the regions fluctuates considerably. The population density in the inner cities is partly higher than the table in Figure 6 shows, whilst the population density drops under the mentioned number in the outskirts. 11