GREEN STUDY


PRODUCT NEWS


Advanced technology can cuts costs and energy A better connected future By Geoff Bennett, Director Solutions & Technology, Infinera


The telecommunications industry needs to take responsibility for the detrimental impact its technology is having on the planet. The good news is that a number of telcos have pledged to reduce carbon emissions by 2020 - suggesting that they are tackling the challenge head on. But with recent research showing


that telcos produce 830 million tons of carbon dioxide - which equates to two per cent of the world’s global emissions – it is clear that the challenge ahead is a big one. Telefonica, for example, aims


Geoff Bennett explains how green technology is set to change the telco landscape…


to reduce its carbon emissions per customer by 30 per cent by 2020. In 2012 the Spanish telco put in place more than 35 energy efficiency projects across its network, achieving a reduction of over 15 GWh and savings of 5 million Euros in energy costs. In the UK, meanwhile, Colt has


even won an award for its sustainability programme - between 2010 and 2013 it saved 16,530 tonnes of CO2, equivalent to €4 million in power costs per annum. This was achieved through a number of projects including capacity upgrades and room cooling unit replacements. Other technology organisations have


taken a similarly practical approach to cutting emissions.


Facebook Facebook, for instance, built its data centre in the northern Swedish city of Lulea, just 60 miles from the Arctic Circle. The extremely cold


climate means that Facebook requires significantly less power to keep its servers cool, and in turn, less energy is expended on cooling systems, so reducing carbon emissions. This has evidently proven to


be a success, as Facebook recently announced that it is planning to build a second data centre in Sweden. But it isn’t just the cold climate of


Northern European countries drawing in the data centres, as renewable energy is also a critical component in deciding where to build. Facebook and Verne Global, a UK


data hosting company with a centre in Iceland, exemplifies how telcos can benefit significantly from being located in areas with rich renewable energy sources.


By making the most of geothermal,


hydroelectric and wind energy, the companies concerned enjoy greater profits through reduced costs, and reduce the levels of carbon dioxide emitted.


But in a world where customers are


demanding more bandwidth, and the adoption of mobile, cloud and video show no signs of slowing down, telcos are being forced to update the hardware in their data centres and add fibres to their networks in order to cope. Even so, operators have no time to


lose, as the demand on the networks is only getting bigger, requiring more and more power. It’s against this backdrop that network


operators need a solution that’s already up and running. Enter photonic integration, an energy


efficient technology that can increase capacity on a network tenfold without manually having to add extra fibre. The technology achieves this by


miniaturising and integrating hundreds of optical components onto a single chip, the Photonic Integrated circuit (PIC).


By placing this chip - only the size


of a fingernail - in communication platforms at the core of the network, the end result is access to tremendous power and space reductions. In addition, by turning to platforms


The Internet: connecting the future 40 NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 3 2014


that integrate Optical Transport Network (OTN) switching with Wavelength-division multiplexing


(WDM) transport, telcos can significantly reduce power consumption. These converged OTN/WDM


systems reduce power use by combining two sets of functions and systems into one, and eliminating power-consuming, and costly, optical inter-connections. Studies have shown that by using


such a system, it is possible to reduce network-wide power consumption by up to 30 per cent over the use of standalone OTN and WDM systems. These technologies can help


provide network carriers with the extra scalability, flexibility and intelligence they need to support the exponential growth in bandwidth.


The Internet of Things Major technology trends - such as the Internet of Things - will increasingly fuel the demand for access anywhere, anytime, increasing network traffic. Photonic Integration offers telcos


the flexibility they need to increase and decrease bandwidth according to these changing demands. This technology trend looks set


to explode in the next decade with estimates of around 50 billion devices being connected by 2020. Despite the additional power required


to power this network of devices, if we implement energy-efficient technology now, the Internet of Things could further help to improve fuel efficiency. For example, a better-connected


environment could enable us to download more horsepower for ours cars as and when we need it, and limiting it when it’s not required. But the environment will never


experience the benefits of such developments if telcos continue to produce the amount of greenhouse gasses that they currently do. The time for the telecoms industry


to take action is now. A failure to implement energy-efficient, capacity boosting technology into networks means that many telcos are not benefiting from the return on investment that such technology will reward them with.


www.infinera.com www.netcommseurope.com


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