11 Jul 2011

Defining Energy-Efficient Networks

Don McCullough, marketing and communications for Ericsson’s IP and broadband products takes a fresh look at metrics and measurement for energy efficient networks

Societies globally face the large-scale challenge of reducing carbon dioxide emissions in response to environmental concerns.

The ITC sector currently contributes around 2 per cent to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. With the rise of the Internet, communications networks continue to expand at a swift pace and carriers are looking to offset the effect of adding tens of millions of new broadband and mobile connections in coming years.

Despite its rapid growth, the ICT sector has a huge opportunity to make a significant positive contribution in averting climate change, as technology advances along with environmental conscientiousness. The industry could enable a 15% reduction in global emissions in 2020, not only by reducing its own carbon footprint but by helping other sectors to do so.

The need for efficiency

The unfolding landscape of telecommunications networks positions carriers to play a key role in the growth of the economy and thus influence the shape of things to come. Sustainability is a top priority for today’s businesses and industry players will look to promote the development of more energy efficient devices, applications and networks, as well as reduce the carbon footprint of their own internal processes. Coming spectrum auctions across the globe mean that service providers are poised to calculate costs, savings and efficiencies to high level detail in order to plan their future investment strategy.

Power consumption accounts for a huge percentage of service providers’ operating expenses, up to 50% in some cases, and the cost of energy is on the rise. The upshot of this is that carriers stand to make significant cost savings in parallel with helping to reduce environmental impacts if they make efforts to reduce power consumption. This gives them extra impetus in the quest to streamline processes. They need clear insight to where they can find efficiencies while maintaining optimal performance standards as they push for technological advancement.

Defining requirements

Planning and implementing successful energy-efficient networks is a tough challenge, but the continuous rapid evolution of telecoms and its interaction with global societies make it even tougher. Standards boundaries are fluid, as industry-wide agreements on a methodology for measuring and reporting energy consumption have not developed quickly enough. This is now being addressed with increased urgency. The need to define requirements for power consumption is taking precedence in governing and advisory bodies around the world, many of which are looking at imposing limits on how much power should be used to deliver broadband services to a residential subscriber.

In order to determine threshold limits, we need to develop them in conjunction with harmonised, transparent measurement methodologies. To date, the metrics available for understanding energy use have been conventional measurements of watts per platform or port. These metrics are insufficient to accurately characterise real-world energy consumption. For example, carriers with an IP edge slice the GigE channel or port in order to offer multiple services to subscribers. Achieving the highest number of virtual leased lines to carry services to subscribers is the key. In this case, an operator needs to know how many times capacity can be sliced, and how much of the associated energy consumption there is per slice.

Metrics that align with how carriers already think about their businesses are the most practical way forward. Linking energy consumption with service creation is inherently more useful to providers who monetise their businesses and plan their infrastructure investments by looking at the number of subscribers serviced. They judge the success of their subscriber business with metrics such as Average Revenue Per User (ARPU). Since profit is the difference between the price they charge for services (ARPU) and the cost of delivering . . . . . .

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