Wireless network infrastructure is becoming more green – and saving operators some greenbacks at the same time.
While interest has been pushed to a higher pitch in recent months due to higher energy and transportation costs, the shift toward greener infrastructure has been in the works for years.
“Vendors have been working on this for a long time,” said Current Analysis analyst Peter Jarich. “It’s not like they just said, ‘We’re going to do this to be green,’ because it’s partly about business considerations. It’s coming along quickly, because it’s what operators want and it’s what vendors have been looking to do anyway.”
“Not only do I think that going green is a good idea from a social- responsibility perspective, in many cases there are also financial incentives to do so – in that every dollar I can save on energy costs, I can spend improving the customer experience in some meaningful way,” said Rich Craig, director of network engineering and operations support for Verizon Wireless and head of the company’s corporate environmental program.
With dollar signs in mind, network vendors have slashed energy use and incorporated other elements that benefit both the planet and the bottom line.
Simple math
Nokia Siemens Networks’ best-selling Flexi base station, for example, uses up to 60% less power than the previous generation, according to marketing director David Lewis. The unit is made of materials that are 95% recyclable, and Nokia Siemens has a program in place to take back the units at the end of their service life. Lewis said that the ability to upgrade by software to the next two steps in the company’s evolution path – including LTE technology – also will prolong the life of the base stations.
The company has calculated that if an operator replaced older technology with 5,000 Flexi base stations, it would keep 43,000 tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere – an amount equivalent to 8,500 homes.
Meanwhile, Ericsson has introduced its Tower Tube, a slim column of concrete with an elevator inside to raise radio equipment to the top of the tower.
The tower incorporates several green aspects, according to Blaise Allen, product manager with Ericsson. The air intake, Allen explained, is at the base of the tower, where air is already cooler – reducing the need for additional cooling and making the tower more energy-efficient, with up to 40% less energy used than a traditional site. The modular concrete units that make up the tower can be constructed locally instead of having to be shipped, and the tower uses about one-tenth the steel of a typical cell site.
The Tower Tube also requires less real estate, with a footprint that is 60% to 75% smaller than traditional cellular sites. Because equipment is raised to the tower’s peak, it eliminates the need for feeder lines – reducing materials and energy loss while providing a good position for propagation, Allen added.
The Tower Tube has been more popular overseas, Allen said. But the next generation of the tower – expected to come to market within a year – will allow more radio equipment to be colocated and increase its appeal in mature markets, he added.
“What we’ve always seen is that it usually takes a crisis or a really strong driver to look at new ways of innovating,” Allen said. “When you approach the market before it’s ready, or before there’s a driver, you don’t see a lot of demand. I think the market is starting to get there. I think that people are starting to get to the reality that fuel costs and electricity costs are going to go up, and it’s going to stay that way.”
Alternative energy trials
Companies also are exploring alternative energy sources as back-up power at cellular sites. Verizon Wireless is investigating fuel cells, solar energy and wind turbines; Sprint Nextel Corp. has about 250 sites with fuel cells as reserve energy and has dabbled in solar as well as geothermal sites. Geothermal sites use a self-contained system where water is used for cooling and then cycled through a small, underground pipe to drop its temperature again so that it can be re-used, according to Joy Dill, manager in network engineering for Sprint Nextel. Dill said that the company has found fuel cells to have particular advantages over traditional back-up power sources in neighborhood settings, such as reductions in noise and diesel fumes.
Plug Power Inc. specializes in fuel cells for back-up power for communications sites. According to Bob Berger, director of government sales for the company, “the adoption curve is, I believe, clearly slower than anyone had hoped for in the back-up area with hydrogen fuel cells. But it is steadily moving forward.”
Berger said the industry could receive a boost if the Federal Communications Commission ultimately decides to require eight hours of reserve power at network sites.
Still, alternative energy use is mostly in the field-trial stage, either due to physical constraints – such as the need for space to install solar panels – or limits on power capacity, in the case of fuel cells.
But those who build and design wireless networks agree that greener networks are on the rise.
“We don’t see it as just a fad,” said Nokia Siemens’ Lewis. “We believe green business is a good, economically viable business.”
