Gianluca Griffa

Carbon footprint of next generation fixed networks

For the first time a full/streamlined life cycle assessment (LCA) case study was performed to estimate the carbon footprint of three types of FTTx networks deployed in Italy. The functional unit is “broadband network in an Italian urban dense area for use by 10,000 homes during one year” The worst case results show that FTTB, FTTCab, and FTTH all emit around 1,000–1,300 ton CO2e/year dominated by the use stage. The LCA based carbon footprint is 30–70% higher than the carbon footprint based only on the use of electricity. As far as overall energy usage reduction, the customer premise equipment (CPE) has the largest opportunity for improvement. A sensitivity analysis shows that it might be possible to reduce the FTTH score by 80% by assuming 4 hours full power mode/20 hours low power mode for the CPE, and use existing infrastructure in deployment. Moreover, FTTH has considerably better bitrate based carbon efficiency than FTTCab and FTTB. The parameterized study could be expanded to included service level functions.

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.

Adaptive remote powering solution for fast changing requirements of telecom networks: A real case experience

The widening need of DC back-up throughout broadband networks, coupled to reduced power consumption and growing need for DC power back-up, has brought remote powering technologies to a wider use in the last two years. Alpha Technologies has supported Telecom Italia in installing more than 20.000 “Fiber to the Cabinet” (FTTCab) nodes, equipped with Alpha Technologies Remote powering equipment units, tailored and customized throughout the full installation process, in co-operation with Alcatel-Lucent, to fulfill Telecom Italias requirements. This paper describes how the successive power solutions have been addressed and designed by Alpha Technologies to support the fast and massive deployment of small Optical Network Units (ONU) from early 2013 until today in 2014, in the main cities of Italy.

Deployment of FTTCab with remote powering and future evolution towards FTTdp with reverse powering

Telecom Italia, within its UltraBroadBand (UBB) development strategy, has the goal to deploy by the end of 2014 more than 25.000 “Fiber To The Cabinet” (FTTCab) nodes in all the main cities in Italy, hosting small Optical Network Units (ONU) with 48 VDSL2 ports each. Such particular architecture enables several benefits among which the possibility to use the existing primary copper network to remotely power the BB equipment from Central Office, thanks to the limited amount of power needed by the UBB equipment. This brings to the consideration that the Telecom Italia FTTCab with remote power deployment is one of the widest ever performed worldwide. This paper will firstly provide information on power consumption evolution of the UBB ONUs, highlighting the good path followed by the equipment towards greater energy efficiency. The activities towards Standardization Bodies, in particular ETSI and ITU-T, as well as European Commission (with the Code of Conduct on BroadBand equipment) will also be mentioned. The paper will then describe the associated evolution of the remote powering architectures massively adopted by Telecom Italia for its FTTCab deployment since 2012, highlighting their pros and cons. The different solutions adopted at the Main Distribution Frame and at the cabinet in order to guarantee proper protection to the technicians against discharge current will also be described. Moreover, the paper will provide an overview of the evolution of the FTTCab towards more “compact” solutions for both ONUs and remote power modules, reducing the overall physical footprint (and the total power consumption) and enabling underground and pole installations. Finally, the paper will describe the evolution of the FTTCab architecture towards the “Fiber To The distribution point” (FTTdp) architecture, involving even smaller UBB ONUs (1 to 8 lines) with even higher throughputs thanks to VDSL2 and G. Fast technologies applied to shorter loops. This will enable the shift from “remote powering” to “reverse powering” paradigm; to this end, the main features and challenges related to the latter solution will be highlighted.

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.

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.