Green Communications and Networking

Green Communications and Networking can bring about a momentous reduction in energy consumption in the information and communication technology (ICT) industry and with other industries. Now a days, there great research in green communications and networking for next-generation wired, wireless, and smart-grid networks and also cutting-edge algorithms, protocols, and network architectures to improve energy efficiency in communication networks has been done.

There are a variety of aspects of modeling, analysis, design, management, deployment, and optimization of algorithms, protocols, and architectures of green communications and networking. There are many energy-efficient hardware platforms, physical layer, networking, and applications. Recently, a new solution for delivering green last-mile access: broadband wireless access with fiber-connected massively distributed antennas (BWA-FMDA) has been made. Surveying a delegate number of demand and response methods in smart grids, we become experts in understanding of smart grid dynamics needed to participate in the development of next-generation wireless cellular network.

 Introduction

At the present time, the world of telecommunications and information communities is facing a more and more severe challenge, specifically on one side the transmitted multimedia rich data are blowing up at a remarkable swiftness and on the other side the total energy consumption by the communication and networking devices and the relevant global CO2 production are growing dreadfully. furthermore, to find radio networking solutions that can really progress energy effectiveness in addition to resource efficiency (Green Communications) is not only advantage for the global environment but also makes profitable logic for telecommunication operators supporting sustainable and profitable business.

What is Green Communications?

When discussing green technologies numerous terms are often used and misused. One of the key issues when discussing green communications is what is exactly meant with ‘green’ communications. It is logical to suppose that a synonym for ‘green’ is ‘environmentally friendly’. But environmentally friendly is a wide term. Due to the dilemma of global warming and the related weather change, the carbon emissions presently receive most concentration. on the other hand, when concerning an environmentally friendly solution, issues like air, water and soil excellence, fortification of the ozone layer, use of natural resources, waste reduction etc. require to be measured as well.

Telecommunications equipment classically contains a substantial quantity of limited materials and heavy metals. Both the extraction of these materials, classically through mining, and the handling of the waste symbolize a large environmental defy. From these we can obtain the quantity of waste formed with and without material recycling. When making an allowance for green technologies the complete life cycle has to be taken into account.

Direct and Indirect Impacts

Direct impacts are directly related to the implementation of the considered solution. For example, implementing a solution which reduces the energy consumption of a service results in a direct impact.
Indirect impacts of solutions are related to the broader penalty of the acceptance of the solution. For example, adoption of email may lead to a higher environmental impact of ICT but at the same time reduce the number of letters being sent which in turn leads to less impact of transport, paper usage, etc..

Mobile Devices

We believe three categories of devices accessing the network: regular mobile phones, smart phones, and laptops. Modeling of the footprint of regular mobile phones is based on cradle to gate. LCA studies of mobile phone manufacturing including the transport to the customers resulting in an average of 18 kg CO2e/device. The operation is estimated to 2 kWh/year based on charging every 60th hour equal to 40 percent of battery capacity every day and a standby scenario of 50 percent of the remaining time. It must be noted that modern mobile phone chargers have low stand-by power consumption in the order of 0.1 W. Based on current trends, we project that manufacturing and operation emissions of laptops decrease by five percent per year.

Radio Access Networks

Concrete figures of the carbon footprint of site manufacturing and construction for the radio access network (RAN) are based on a complete LCA of network equipment. Figures on emissions and energy consumption due to RAN site operation, operator activities, data centre operation, and data transport are based on a broad operator investigation covering networks that service about 40 percent of global subscriptions. In 2007, the RAN electricity consumption per average subscription was about 17 kWh.

The construction of new base station sites every year as well as the removal of old site equipment is taken into account throughout the period of study. Surveying existing network equipment reveals that annual electricity consumption of new base station sites decreases about 8 percent on average compared to equipment installed the year before due to technological advances. This average is an overall estimate inclusive of all developments in power amplifiers, digital remote and small outdoor RBSs as well as the growing share of 3G base stations. In this regard, the base station model must be seen as an average of the mix of installed product. For predictions until 2020, we assume that the 8 percent/year trend continues over the study period and refer to it as continuous improvements.

Femto Cells

The power consumption of a femto cell today is around 10 W, it will be around 6 W in 2012, and it can be assumed that a femto cell in 2020 will still consume about 5 W (if the power consumption for the fixed line connection is also included). An estimated number of 100 million femto cells in 2020 will consume about 4.4 TWh/year, which is less than 5 percent than consumed by the global RAN. Given this rather small impact and high uncertainty of deployment estimates, we exclude femtocells in the RAN energy consumption model. While femto cells consume a rather small amount of energy, their positive impact on data traffic and capacity, resulting in an energy consumption decrease, could indeed be larger.