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As operators scale 5G, sustainability is a business imperative

by RCR Wireless News and Ericsson (Sponsored)
written by RCR Wireless News and Ericsson (Sponsored) Share
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Ericsson explains three-step approach to sustainably scaling 5G—plan differently, deploy differently, operate differently

In 2020, Ericsson first took a deep dive into breaking the energy curve with a focus on how operators could transition from 4G to 5G without following the historical pattern of major generational step changes in energy consumption. Now, with more than 228 live 5G networks operating around the world, the focus has shifted to how operators can sustainably scale these networks and help enterprise customers realize the positive business and environmental outcomes 5G can enable. 

At a high-level, Ericsson suggests that communications service providers do their part to achieve net-zero goals following a three-step approach: plan differently by keeping holistic, sustainable network evolution top of mind; deploy differently by modernizing network equipment in the process of scaling out; and operate differently by leveraging AI/ML-based network automation tools to cut energy use without compromising performance. 

To better understand Ericsson’s approach, and how operators are successfully following that approach in the real world, RCR Wireless News caught up with Sashieka Seneviratne, director of sustainability for networks at Ericsson, on a recent episode of the podcast Will 5G Change the World? 

Seneviratne framed the issue by sharing several related statistics. By the end of 2028, 5G subscriptions will account for more than half of all mobile subscriptions in the world, and 5G will reach the 1 billion subscription mark two years faster than 4G did. In the past decade, mobile network traffic has grown 300x while operators’ energy consumption has increased 1.6x, which means the two have been decoupled and are following different growth trajectories. 

“This is good news,” Seneviratne said. “What this means is together, as an industry, we have an opportunity to make a difference in energy consumption while the traffic grows.” Linking together the importance of building energy efficient networks and the ongoing switch to renewables, she gave the analogy of adding solar to a home without also addressing insulation–tandem action items that together deliver the full value of an investment in sustainability.

There’s also the vitally important cost component of sustainably scaling 5G. Operators dedicate around 20% to 40% of operating costs to energy. At the same time, many prominent global CSPs have articulated net-zero and decarbonization plans that focus on directly cutting emissions and consumptions rather than investing in offsets. Add in other factors like the shift from shareholder to stakeholder capitalism and the importance of a strong ESG strategy in demonstrating long-term corporate viability and vision to financial markets, and sustainability investments emerge as a lever that can strengthen an operator organization while also saving it money. “There is this dual benefit of reducing energy consumption,” Seneviratne said. “While they reduce carbon emissions, there’s this opportunity to impact their opex in a significant way as well.” 

From the why to the how of sustainably scaling 5G

Now let’s take a closer look at Ericsson’s three-step approach to scaling 5G in a way that helps operators meet their business and environmental goals. It all starts with a holistic network evolution plan that incorporates energy efficient equipment, shifting energy mix to increasingly tap into renewable sources of power, and understanding network traffic patterns at the macro and granular, site-specific levels. That last part is key because to wring the most energy efficiency out of a network, an operator has to understand where, when and in what manner network-based services are consumed, so as to maintain QoE and QoS while cutting power consumption. And because the radio access network (RAN) draws the bulk of the power, finding efficiencies here takes priority. 

Seneviratne said RAN products consume around 75% of network power consumption, making it the obvious lever to pull in pursuit of energy efficiencies. But you can’t identify and capture efficiencies without being able to measure consumption, a capability built into Ericsson’s portfolio. “Once a network ha that capability to look at this data and analyze the opportunity for improvement, the next step is to use network analytics to look at the impact of performance, and balance the user experience, energy efficiency and opex savings…Holistic network evolution planning is about embracing more—more aspects into planning and more aspects of operating the network.” 

With a plan in place, it’s time to deploy; this will obviously vary from operator to operator but major trends in the market today include the deployment of new frequency bands–there’s particular emphasis on deployment of massive MIMO arrays for mid-band spectrum to provide a nice balance of coverage and capacity), moving formerly hardware-specific functionality into software, aggregating multiple component carriers to increase system performance, and spectrum sharing. 

From a product perspective, Seneviratne said in 2021 Ericsson achieved 36% energy savings from delivered radios compared to legacy products. The next goal is to reduce site consumption by 40% by 2025. A piece of this puzzle is deployment of multi-band radios that collapse radios for different frequencies into one physical unit, Radio 6626 for example. “What this gives is the opportunity for a site to add more capacity and frequency bands while improving energy efficiency, height and weight,” she said. In practice, two Radio 6626 units could replace nine single-band radios on a tower while supporting the same frequency bands. “The site would have 60% higher capacity with 50% lower energy consumption,” not to mention the reduction in radio weight and tower utilization ties to lower rental/leasing costs and TCO. 

The final step, smart, data-driven operations is an ongoing exercise in observing network performance patterns by ensuing AI and ML tools to gain insight into traffic profiles, then feed that insight into the service management and orchestration (SMO) platform. One example is predictive RAN and other network infrastructure energy optimization—if you use historical traffic patterns to predict future traffic patterns, specific sites don’t always need to be provisioned for peak load. Instead, when demand for network resources isn’t there, certain systems can effectively be put into micro-sleep states where they temporarily don’t consume energy. This is a case of a millions of tiny optimizations adding up to a major impact on energy consumption and opex. 

“Sites have different traffic profiles,” Seneviratne explained. “Sites have different energy consumption trends in different parts of the network. The challenge is to manage this in a way where we save energy but we still keep the optimum user experience…That’s where AI/ML comes into play. We really have to maximize the power of data to boost automation.” 

In summary, Seneviratne said, “5G has the capability to impact sustainability in ways that we could never imagine. We need to promote the use cases and the value of 5G when it comes to sustainability.” 

Use this content library to get more information on how 5G can be deployed and scaled more sustainably:

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