Flavio Cucchietti

The potential impact of green technologies in next-generation wireline networks: Is there room for energy saving optimization?

Recently, network operators around the world reported statistics of network energy requirements and the related carbon footprint, showing an alarming and growing trend. Such high energy consumption can be mainly ascribed to networking equipment designed to work at maximum capacity with high and almost constant dissipation, independent of the traffic load. However, recent developments of green network technologies suggest the chance to build future devices capable of adapting their performance and energy absorption to meet actual workload and operational requirements. In such a scenario, this contribution aims at evaluating the potential impact on next-generation wireline networks of green technologies in economic and environmental terms. We based our impact analysis on the real network energy-efficiency targets of an ongoing European project, and applied them to the expected deployment of Telecom Italia infrastructure by 2015-2020.

Setting the Course for a Green Internet

In his Perspective “Toward a green Internet” (29 March, p. [1533][1]), D. Reforgiato Recupero reflects (partially) some of the ideas and even the wording of the ECONET projects Description of Work (DoW) ([ 1 ][2]), first published on 6 September 2010. However, the general philosophy of the

Eco-efficiency indicator: an operator’s energy performance indicator

In the last ten years, the telecom Operators have made strong actions towards an ever more efficient use of the energy and to its reduction. As the network architecture was stable (service from the Central Office), the effect of these actions was easily measurable. The Next Generation Network (NGN) the Operators are aiming to, implies a completely different and highly distributed scenario, where most of the network equipment will be deployed in FTTCab -FTTB architecture. There is the need to define a method to analyze the energy performance behavior which should be both general and future proof. This method should be applicable both to the current network and to the NGN, assuring a constant and reliable assessment. The proposed method takes into account the ratio between the service delivered (in terms of bits) and the total energy used by the Operator (Joules). Telecom Italia is developing a comprehensive Indicator representing its Fixed and Mobile networks performance. The energy sources taken into account are: industrial (energy used by the network plants), civil (offices, lighting) and fuels (car and heating fuel). The document will depict the results of the application of such an Indicator to the Telecom Italia case. It will analyze its trend on 2003 -2006 period, detailing all the key factors and their mutual action on the final result.

Environmental benefits of a Universal Mobile Charger and energy-aware survey on current products

More than a billion of new mobile phones are sold yearly, while nearly the same amount of older devices are being disposed, contributing to the e-waste challenge. Furthermore, old chargers, often not compatible with the new phones, are sent to dump too, adding up to the e-waste problem and increasing the costs for the end user. This paper reports an analysis performed on a wide number of mobile charger currently available in the market. In particular, such analysis gives the distribution of: output voltages and currents, type of connectors, efficiency, sizes, weights, etc. trying at same time to highlight the correlations (if present) among such variables and identifying the best available solution. Then, further studies based on LCA will also be presented, with the goal to analyze the mobile charger efficiencies and their related environmental impacts concerning the use phase as well as the manufacturing one. As a conclusion, the paper will provide some suggestions on the main features that a Universal Mobile Charger should have.

An update on the field trial concerning underground solution for FTTCab architecture

The concept of the energy-saving strategy has become in recent years one of the top priorities of Telecom Operators and Governments. To this end, the deployment of the Next Generation Networks represents one of the main drivers towards the reduction of the energy bill. The NGN architecture can include different scenarios: FTTE, FTTCab, FTTB or FTTH. Among these, the FTTCab certainly brings the greatest challenges concerning the issue of heat dissipation. To this end, the present paper describes the first field trial (jointly carried on by Telecom Italia and Huawei) results for an innovative cooling solution: the Underground Cooling Cabinet. This system adopts a certain number of heat pipes (sealed hollow tubes containing a solution of ammonia) installed underground with the aim of refreshing the hot air coming from the equipment. The cooling process is simply pursued with the support of one fan, and is therefore far more efficient with respect to traditional solutions involving for example mechanical air conditioning systems. Data collected from the field trial and concerning internal/external temperature, as well as humidity, will be reported in the following. Finally, the next steps of the trial will be anticipated.

An update on the field trial concerning Free Cooling solution for FTTCab architecture

The concept of the energy-saving strategy has become in recent years one of the top priorities of Telecom Operators and Governments. To this end, the deployment of the Next Generation Networks represents one of the main drivers towards the reduction of the energy bill. The NGN architecture can include different scenarios: FTTE, FTTCab, FTTB or FTTH. Among these, the FTTCab certainly brings the greatest challenges concerning the issue of heat dissipation. To this end, the present paper describes the first field trial (jointly carried on by Telecom Italia and Huawei) results for an innovative cooling solution: the Free Cooling Cabinet. This system directly uses the external fresh air in order to increase the cooling efficiency. In particular, data collected from the field trial and concerning internal/external temperature, humidity as well as noise levels will be reported. Finally, the next steps of the trial will be anticipated.

Analysis of existing standards on broadband equipment's energy efficiency and proposal of an alternative evaluation methodology

Analysis of broadband equipments energy efficiency evaluation methodologies in industry aims to try to develop simple and operational method to profit both Operators and Vendors; it is analyzed based on existing standards including Code of Conduct on Energy Consumption of Broadband Equipment (CoC BB, Version 3), ETSI TS 102 533 Environmental Engineering (EE) Measurement Methods and limits for Energy Consumption in Broadband Telecommunication Networks Equipment (V1.1.1), North American Verizon NEBS Compliance: Energy Efficiency Requirements for Telecommunications Equipment standard VZ-TPR-9205 (Issue 3) and Telecom Italias and Huaweis usual (“standard”) testing procedures. The following aspects are analyzed: product scope including customer side and network side broadband equipment, broadband equipments energy efficiency definition, measurement conditions, load and configuration comparison and their advantage and disadvantage. Huawei support an index which can make its consumers realize the importance of energy saving and select more energy efficient services. To simplify the measurement procedures and solve the difficulty of load and configuration based on Operators actual network scenario needing numerous loads such as line simulators and CPEs, an operational alternative measurement method is proposed to extrapolate the energy efficiency value which approaches the real measurement value through minimize the possible influencing factors.

Ecoefficiency of universal power supplies for customer premises equipment

The goal of the present study is to provide a comparison between a new common power supplies (CPS) prototype and the old version of power supplies, suitable for powering the same type of device, in order to weigh up according to the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach the possible environmental and energetic implications. The comparison was developed in the framework of the most recent HGI and ETSI specifications and the power supplies considered perform the same services, specifically for a modem/access gateway used for providing the broadband service at customers premises. The LCA methodological approach supported the quantitative description of the ecoefficiency of these CPSs and the system boundaries were defined from the cradle to the use phase.

Autocleaning filter used on air direct cooling system outdoor cabinet

Currently there are many different cooling methodologies used for outdoor cabinets; among them, the most used ones are the Heat Exchanger system (HXS) and the Air Direct Cooling System (ADCS). ADCS has the higher cooling efficiency, but on the other side it needs frequent maintenance given that sand, dust and dirt reduces the air flow passing through the filter. This study is focused on how to automatically clean up the filter, therefore strongly reducing the maintenance cost as well as the total OPEX.

An overview of available and future technical solutions to reduce/optimize the energy consumption of Telecom equipment and networks

In the past years, increased environmental awareness from the community as well as governments commitment on energy efficiency have been converted to pressure on the ICT players to optimize their energy footprint. In the meantime, soaring energy price is impacting very seriously on their financial balance. In the last year, this effect has been temporarely attenuated as a side effect of the economic crisis, but its expected to worsen both due to the future increase of the energy cost and to the punitive measures (such as differential pricing) being launched in many countries to boost energy efficient behaviours.