Green Telecom

The word ”Green Telecom” has great importance in today’s world as it is not that known like green offices, green energy, green cities. But if someone closely follows the other going green concepts then one realizes that all these concepts are related to basically use of efficient telecom and ICT (Information & Communication Technology).

With some statistics given below one will come to know why this term has significance.

“Telecom industry was responsible for 245 mega-tonnes of carbon equivalent (Mt CO2e) in 2009, serving about 4.6 billion subscribers. Those figures put the average CO2e emissions per subscriber at about 53 kilograms.”

Despite of above statistics, if we really strive for Green Telecom technologies and concepts then Telecom is the only field which will help to reduce carbon footprint of other industries.

Several key sectors where mobile (Telecom) can contribute to reducing emissions. These are smart transportation and logistics, smart grids and smart meters, smart buildings, and the substitution of high carbon activities such as travel through the use of mobile communications technologies.

Green telecom is a concept of reducing carbon emission by telecom equipments, optimizing equipments for minimizing use of energy, and reducing the cost of operations in telecommunication by environment friendly way. Green telecom is the concept which is evolving to solve the current power and high cost of operation problems faced by Telecom companies. This can be achieved by mainly three ways reducing power consumption at access network side, core network and network operation canters and third is end devices (customer equipments)i.e mobile handset or laptops.

Green telecom is now getting ground in not only in developed countries operator but also in developing countries in different forms and at different levels.

Because the cost of producing green energy sources i.e wind energy, solar energy etc is decreasing day by day and cost of conventional energy is increasing.

As mentioned above this concept can be achieved by three ways, to achieve this various research firms, manufacturers and operators working on this in different ways by innovating the operations and equipments.

At network access part means where the signal is transmitted on air for reaching the customer or last mile connection in wired network. Going green at this part involve using wind and solar energy to meet the electricity demand at tower by antenna and other subsystems.

Many operators and manufacturer are working on this is good way to reduce emission of carbon footprint because at tower (BTS subsystem) requires huge power for transmission of signal with never down mode which requires backups (D.C generators, battery). By using alternative energy sources for tower sites and local exchanges which are remotely located is an ideal solution.

Ericsson has installed such 300 green sites in remote areas and they are hoping this number will surge in 2010.

Huawei and ZTE are working on consolidating the RAN (Radio Access Network) into single unit which reduces reality cost by 70% and 50% energy consumption.

In core network (Backbone) of any operator is an opportunity to reduce energy consumption. Because core network consists high transmission links, data centers and switching centers which also requires high power not to forget cooling systems which contribute major portion of total cost of operators.

In the past, equipment providers specified equipment operating temperatures of up to 25°C. But 45°C is now common, enabling operators to reduce the overall energy consumption of the BTS by using passive cooling (fresh air) as opposed to active cooling (air conditioning),” the report pointed out.

On the handset side, vendors have so far been slow to introduce recycling programs and even slower when it comes to green handsets. While there are several ‘green’ handsets made from recycled material today, or handsets that come with a built-in solar charger, they are far and few in between. At the same time, there are initiatives to reduce the packaging of handsets but that is also in the nascent stages.

One of the aspects is that many of areas worldwide facing pwer problem which is reducing ARPU for operators. By giving green solution for handsets Digicell has increased its revenue by 14%.

Governmental support in establishing a common framework to measure the mobile industry’s energy and environmental performance, for example, by aligning national and regional methodologies with those being developed by ETSI and ITU in conjunction with the mobile industry and other private sector players. Such measurements are an essential.

GSMA (Global systems for mobile communications Association) has given recently its green manifesto which says operators will reduce carbon emission by 40% by2020.

“After all, there’s more at stake in the fight against climate change than more profit – it’s the planet and our future we are talking about”.