Global Consortium Concludes Five-Year Effort by Sharing Dramatic Findings, New Tools, Technologies and Architectures That Offer Significant Energy Savings for Wireless, Fixed and Core Networks
NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Jun 18, 2015) - GreenTouch™, the global consortium dedicated to dramatically improving the energy efficiency of data communications networks, today announced its final results and unveiled new tools, technologies and architectures to improve the energy efficiencies of communications networks in years to come. During a celebratory event in New York, GreenTouch revealed that its new approaches can improve energy efficiencies of mobile-access networks by more than 10,000X -- an achievement far exceeding the original goals of the working group.
The consortium also announced research that will enable significant improvements in other areas of communications networks, including core networks and fixed (wired) residential and enterprise networks. With these energy-efficiency improvements, the net energy consumption of communication networks could be reduced by 98% from 2010 to 2020 while accounting for significant traffic growth. This savings is equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions of 5.8 million cars.
"It's amazing how fast the time has flown by since the start of the GreenTouch project, but what's most impressive are the results our international team of scientists, academics, and industry leaders have achieved, in just five short years, to chart a path to greener networks," stated Thierry Van Landegem, chairman, GreenTouch. "With the public release of tools and technologies that industry and academia can use now to design and deploy more energy-efficient communications networks today and in the future. Our work will not only enable a more productive and sustainable future, but will also help many more people to connect with one another."
GreenTouch was formed in 2010, driven by the vision and leadership of Bell Labs, the industrial research arm of Alcatel-Lucent. Its aim was to determine how to support the burgeoning growth of communications networks in a sustainable and economically viable way. At that time, the consortium determined that reduced energy consumption and increased energy efficiency can enable the practical and greater use of renewable energy.
The information and communications technology (ICT) industry, including the network of networks that underpins the global Internet, will account for about 1.97 percent of worldwide carbon emissions in 2030, according to the SMARTer2030 report issued by the industry partnership GeSI. This figure can potentially be larger as more people seek to connect with each other and access more content in new, richer ways. In addition, the emissions avoided through greater use of ICT approaches are estimated to be almost ten times larger than the direct effect of emissions generated by ICT, which would have an impact on the broader opportunity for climate change and economic development through many emerging ICT services and applications.
During today's event, GreenTouch announced it is making two tools publicly available to any organizations and stakeholders interested in creating more efficient networks:
In addition, members demonstrated key technologies contributing to the results, which include a number of previously unannounced GreenTouch innovations. Some of the major contributors to the findings include:
For more information on the new projects, please go to www.greentouch.org
About GreenTouch
GreenTouch is a consortium of leading Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry, academic and non-governmental research experts dedicated to fundamentally transforming communications and data networks, including the Internet, and significantly reducing the carbon footprint of ICT devices, platforms and networks. More information can be found at www.greentouch.org and to stay updated follow GreenTouch on Twitter at @Green_Touch.
Contact Information:
For more information:
Stacey Paris-Bechtel
Breakaway Communications (for GreenTouch)
585-794-6106 - mobile