Energy-Efficient Telecommunications

For many years, the prime drivers behind advances in telecommunications have been the need for increased capacity and reduced cost. But recently, concerns about the rising energy use of telecommunications networks have brought the issue of energy efficiency into the mix, both for equipment vendors and for network operators. In this chapter, we provide an overview of energy consumption in telecommunications networks. We identify the key contributors to energy consumption and identify trends in the growth of energy consumption. We compare the performance of state-of-the-art equipment with theoretical lower bounds on energy consumption and point to opportunities for improving the energy efficiency of core metro and access networks. We show that there is potential for significant improvements in energy efficiency.