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| Thursday, 03 July 2008 | |
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US$1 trillion is prize for environmentally friendly telecoms industry…
Carriers and other providers in the global ICT industry can bring to bear an array of technologies and services to substantially improve the environment while generating over US$1 trillion in new revenue over the next five years. So says ‘Communicating Green: Telecommunications Value in Promoting Environmental Improvement, 2008-2013’, a recent market research study from The INSIGHT Research Corporation. The study found that by using existing networks and services, carriers and other ICT providers can utilise green communications portfolios that mitigate the deleterious impacts that green house gas (GHG) emissions, energy power consumption, and waste disposal have on the environment. INSIGHT Research’s study evaluated the use of existing telecommunications technologies and services applied to five key domains: transportation demand management to improve fuel consumption; demand side management of electrical power, machine-to-machine communications to improve operational efficiencies; the recycling of electronic devices; and regulatory compliance and audits. To impact the environment positively in each of the domains, specific improvements were quantified in nine solution areas: mobile workforce; field services and personnel; data centre operations; telecommuting; facilities/building management; environmental audit and compliance systems; branch and remote office capabilities; environmentally located data centres; and ICT equipment recycling. “Instead of investing in new technology, all carriers have to do is organise their existing capabilities into solutions sets,” offers Robert Rosenberg, INSIGHT Research. “For example, carriers have technologies that can be used to reduce auto emissions as well as energy demand to heat and cool offices and homes. Enterprises and households that reduce their carbon footprint will be able to monetise the results, while carriers generate new revenue from existing capabilities.” Off message From a consumer standpoint there are, though, a couple of potential contradictions at the heart of the contemporary green telecoms mantra. As noted by Ovum consumer telecoms analyst Michael Philpott in a posting on his company’s ‘Straight Talk’ service last month, attempts by consumers to reduce the amount of power they use runs counter to the trend that sees proliferation of electrical and electronic devices in the home. Again, the notion of ‘always on’ isn’t always very eco-friendly. “This 'always on' state has come about with the drive for ubiquitous connectivity. For content and applications to be available anywhere and at anytime, access to content (whether stored locally, remotely or via the Internet) must also be available at anytime and from any location,” points out Philpott. “Hard switching such sources (or access to sources) to ‘off’ goes against the whole concept.” Whilst admitting that for some devices ‘always on’ is not such a big deal in terms of energy consumption/cost, for others it is. Nor is ‘off’ always good. “One IPTV set-top box that Ovum tested didn't actually register any difference between active and standby modes”, says Philpott. Ovum reckons industry could do more – producing devices that are able to automatically switch on and off as and when required. There may also be an opportunity for telcos here. “Keeping more of the intelligence and actual content within the network will reduce the complexity of the devices in the home and remove the need to keep them on to access content and applications,” reasons Philpott. “From an environmental point of view this should also make sense, as a small number of large servers will be more efficient than millions of small ones.” John Williamson |
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