Executives from Vodafone, Telefónica, and Orange were among those who called for the ITU to develop a white paper covering the energy efficiency of 5G networks, as part of a series of measures covering the energy consumption of telecoms infrastructure.
At an energy efficiency event jointly organised by Huawei and the ITU, the organisation was also urged to produce an international standard covering ecological design principles for 4G and 5G architectures and sites, and develop key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the energy consumption and gains in efficiency for mobile, fixed and core networks, along with servers and storage facilities.
Operators also called for the ITU to include SDN, NFV and OSS in the KPI document, along with billing, provisioning, service platforms, network services and customer usage facilities, Huawei announced in a summary of the event, which took place last week in Madrid.
Kyriakos Exadaktylos, head of network standards at Vodafone told delegates that the industry has an opportunity to make 5G a true point of differentiation in terms of energy efficiency. He also detailed Vodafone's experience in implementing green standards in its current infrastructure, including improvements in its cooling systems, AC/DC conversion, usage of renewable energy sources, and intelligent management.
Orange's VP of social responsibility and green, Jean Claude Bourgoint, discussed the progress of a green energy partnership the operator struck with Huawei in December 2013, while Gabriel Bonilha, head of network infrastructure efficiency at Telefónica Group discussed the company's global energy efficiency program, and called for cooperation between operators on future energy standards.
Other operators participating in the event included KPN, Deutsche Telekom, China Mobile, and Romanian operator AdNet Telecom, Huawei stated. The vendor added that it, the ITU and operators used the event to agree to jointly research disruptive solutions covering the modular approach of ITN infrastructures, energy procurement, and smart energy management.
The telecoms companies were joined by industry experts from research companies Frost and Sullivan and DCDI, the vendor announced.
For more:
- see this Huawei announcement
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