Tag Archive for: Green Future Networks

Green Future Networks- A Roadmap to Energy Efficient Mobile Networks

New guidance on reducing energy consumption in mobile networks

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Dusseldorf Germany, 02 July 2024.

Today, the Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance (NGMN) published “Green Future Networks: A Roadmap to Energy Efficient Networks,” offering new guidance and recommendations on reducing energy consumption in mobile networks. This comprehensive roadmap aims to enhance energy-saving methods for MNOs and the wider industry.

This latest NGMN publication outlines 16 different energy saving techniques and intelligent solutions that are currently used or under development in the industry. Supported by real-world data, the publication highlights the energy saving potential of each solution and classifies each by type and by the time needed to develop and deploy them.

“Reducing energy consumption while maintaining service performance is a key ongoing challenge for the industry,” said Arash Ashouriha, Chairman of the NGMN Alliance Board and SVP Group Technology at Deutsche Telekom. “NGMN’s Green Future Networks Programme continues to provide the industry with valuable actionable guidance by pooling the very best of industry knowledge and shaping clear recommendations.”

According to the publication, energy consumption can be reduced through process optimisations, engineering and operational improvements, and the deployment of recent technologies. This is the latest phase of NGMN’s Green Future Networks programme, building on the previous publications that addressed the short-term solutions that mobile network operators (MNOs) could deploy.

The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to better plan and manage networks and match planned and operational capacity to predicted traffic is a key new addition to a number of the identified solutions. The publication outlines that AI can help estimate energy consumption, AI algorithms can help MNOs make improved energy saving decisions and highlights the importance of identifying low energy efficiency sites.

Laurent Leboucher, Member of the NGMN Alliance Board and Group CTO at Orange added: “Finding ways to reduce energy consumption and meet our climate goals is of utmost importance to the industry. The solutions span multiple domains: better network planning and engineering, improved network management, the application of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, and the development and use of new technologies. Only by working together and collaborating within industry alliances such as NGMN can we achieve these goals.”

As part of the publication, MNOs are encouraged to share wireless and RAN infrastructure and utilise the network resources to limit energy consumption and carbon emissions. It is also recommended that standards development organisations enhance interworking between mobile networks and energy suppliers as a method to reduce carbon footprints and costs, while maintaining service availability.

“Energy reduction, the use of renewables, and the continued delivery of high quality mobile services are non-negotiable cornerstones of how the mobile industry must operate now and in the future,” said Luke Ibbetson, Member of the NGMN Alliance Board and Head of Group R&D at Vodafone. “Vodafone is proud to have acted as co-lead for this initiative within NGMN and will continue to actively lead and support this important work going forward.”

The publication was developed with input from across the industry, with NGMN Partners representing operators, vendors, and research institutes. NGMN invites all parties across the entire value chain to join the Alliance in this important endeavour, namely Green Future Networks.

 

The publication can be downloaded from here.

The collaboration between NGMN’s partners helps drive the most important subjects in the industry today, including NGMN’s Strategic Focus Topics: Mastering the Route to Disaggregation, Green Future Networks and 6G. NGMN invites all parties across the entire value chain to join the Alliance in this important endeavour.

Further information and all NGMN publications can be found on the website at ngmn.org.

About NGMN Alliance

The NGMN Alliance (NGMN) is a forum founded by world-leading Mobile Network Operators and open to all Partners in the mobile industry. Its goal is to ensure that next generation network infrastructure, service platforms and devices will meet the requirements of operators and ultimately will satisfy end user demand and expectations. The vision of NGMN is to provide impactful industry guidance to achieve innovative, sustainable and affordable mobile telecommunication services for the end user with a particular focus on Mastering the Route to Disaggregation / Operating Disaggregated Networks, Green Future Networks and 6G, whilst continuing to support 5G’s full implementation.

NGMN seeks to incorporate the views of all interested stakeholders in the telecommunications industry and is open to three categories of participants/NGMN Partners: Mobile Network Operators (Members), vendors, software companies and other industry players (Contributors), as well as research institutes (Advisors). NGMN invites all parties across the entire value chain to join the Alliance in these important endeavours.

Green Future Networks- Metering in Virtualised RAN Infrastructure

New Recommendations for Measuring Energy Consumption in Virtualized Networks

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Dusseldorf Germany, 04 April 2024.

Today’s publication by the Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance (NGMN), titled ‘Green Future Networks: Metering in Virtualised RAN Infrastructure,’ offers key recommendations to the industry regarding the measurement of energy consumption in virtualised RAN networks. The publication was jointly developed by the NGMN membership, including Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), vendors and research institutes.

“Addressing the challenge of managing and minimising energy consumption is paramount within our industry,” remarked Arash Ashouriha, Chairman of the NGMN Alliance Board and SVP Group Technology at Deutsche Telekom. “Through this publication, the NGMN Alliance delivers vital recommendations for industry standards, facilitating more precise and real-time estimations of energy consumed by virtualised or cloud-native network functions.”

“Sustainability is a considerable concern for MNOs and their customers,” emphasised Laurent Leboucher, Member of the NGMN Alliance Board and Group CTO at Orange. “Accurate measurement of energy usage in our networks and associated carbon emissions is essential. This publication marks a crucial stride towards fostering greater transparency in energy consumption within virtualised infrastructure.”

This latest NGMN publication highlights the necessity of enhancing current 3GPP Virtual Network Function (VNF) / Cloud Network Function (CNF) energy consumption estimation frameworks for more precise measurement of energy consumption by VNF/CNF on shared IT/Cloud infrastructure. The publication offers several recommendations to Standards Development Organizations (SDOs) to accelerate the development of enhanced frameworks.

Additionally, the publication underscores the potential of utilizing Redfish® by DMTF (Distributed Management Task Force) along with open-source tools like Kepler (Kubernetes-based Efficient Power Level Exporter) and Prometheus. This combination enables MNOs to perform network-wide, real-time, and accurate estimations of IT-infrastructure performance and power consumption. These estimations are regarded as accurate enough to be effectively considered as ‘measurements’.

The publication emphasises that operating models will influence MNOs’ ability to manage the performance and energy consumption of vRAN functions. It suggests that APIs between Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) and MNOs may need to replace standardised FCAPS (Fault, Configuration, Accounting, Performance, and Security) interfaces if not exposed by the CSP.

“Bringing together the industry to tackle our shared challenges, unlocking opportunities and providing crucial guidance to the industry is NGMN’s core mission,” stated Anita Doehler, CEO at NGMN Alliance. “This publication further advances the industry’s capacity to deploy disaggregated, virtualized and cloud-native architectures, all while effectively managing energy consumption and environmental impact.”

The publication can be downloaded from here.

The collaboration between NGMN’s partners helps drive the most important subjects in the industry today, including NGMN’s Strategic Focus Topics: Mastering the Route to Disaggregation, Green Future Networks and 6G. NGMN invites all parties across the entire value chain to join the Alliance in this important endeavour.

Further information and all NGMN publications can be found on the website at ngmn.org.


About NGMN Alliance

The NGMN Alliance (NGMN) is a forum founded by world-leading Mobile Network Operators and open to all Partners in the mobile industry. Its goal is to ensure that next generation network infrastructure, service platforms and devices will meet the requirements of operators and ultimately will satisfy end user demand and expectations. The vision of NGMN is to provide impactful industry guidance to achieve innovative, sustainable and affordable mobile telecommunication services for the end user with a particular focus on Mastering the Route to Disaggregation / Operating Disaggregated Networks, Green Future Networks and 6G, whilst continuing to support 5G’s full implementation.

NGMN seeks to incorporate the views of all interested stakeholders in the telecommunications industry and is open to three categories of participants/NGMN Partners: Mobile Network Operators (Members), vendors, software companies and other industry players (Contributors), as well as research institutes (Advisors). NGMN invites all parties across the entire value chain to join the Alliance in these important endeavours.

FNW speaker 2024 - NGMN_

FutureNet World 2024

London // by

NETWORK AUTOMATION & AI, DEFINING THE ROADMAP FOR THE TELCO OF THE FUTURE

We were excited to be part of the “FutureNet World” in London. Our CEO Anita Döhler discussed key insights from the latest NGMN Green Future Networks publication, highlighting how the industry can tackle the high priority issues concerning energy efficiency in networking and the steps that it needs to take to build towards net zero targets.

Access our latest Green Future Networks publications  here.

We invite interested industry players to become part of our endeavour. 

Reducing Environmental Impact

Reducing Environmental Impact: New Report for MNOs

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Dusseldorf, Germany, 23 January 2024. Today the NGMN Alliance (NGMN) issued a new publication “Reducing Environmental Impact: Best Practices and Recommendations” providing guidance to the mobile telecommunication industry on how to manage and reduce its environmental footprint in relation to greenhouse gas emissions, materials usage, energy and water.

“Over the last three decades the mobile industry has provided enormous economic and societal benefits to billions of users worldwide. We must however continue this success story in a way that is sustainable and that minimises the industry’s environmental footprint”, said Arash Ashouriha, Chairman of the NGMN Alliance Board and SVP Group Technology at Deutsche Telekom. “I am proud that the mobile industry has come together – in NGMN – to share best practice and enable the whole industry to address this vitally important issue“, he added.

Laurent Leboucher, Member of the NGMN Alliance Board, Group CTO and SVP Orange Innovation Networks at Orange added: “Environmental impact is not just limited to carbon emissions – use of rare materials, plastics and water footprint all need to be considered, managed and reduced. Orange is proud to have collaborated with our industry peers to develop this NGMN publication – a publication which will provide significant value to the wider industry”.

This latest NGMN publication highlights how operators can assess the lifecycle environmental impact of their network infrastructure in terms of emissions, energy, and water footprint. The report identifies the use of Lifecycle Assessment in relation to energy and emissions and demonstrates how to calculate water footprint. Based on these tools, strategies are outlined for how to manage and reduce the environmental impact by, for example, selecting and using materials in the design of network infrastructure that have lower emissions and energy requirements and by for example switching to data centre cooling methods that use less water.

“The vision of the NGMN Alliance is to provide impactful guidance to achieve innovative and affordable mobile telecommunication services for the end user with a particular focus on Mastering the Route to Disaggregation, Green Future Networks, as well as 6G”, said Anita Doehler, CEO at NGMN Alliance. “The mobile industry is working very hard to reduce its environmental footprint. However, no single stakeholder – operator or vendor – can do this alone. We must work together, collaborate for the sake of developing new solutions, share best practices, and learn from each other to make this happen. This new publication is an excellent example of the value NGMN provides to its membership and to the wider industry”, she added.

The publication was developed with input from across the industry – with NGMN Partners representing operators, vendors, and research institutes.

The publication can be downloaded from here.

Collaboration is key to driving the industry’s most important topics such as NGMN’s strategic pillars: Operating Disaggregated Networks, Green Future Networks, and 6G. NGMN therefore invites all parties across the entire value chain to join the Alliance in this important endeavour.

Further information and all publications of the NGMN Alliance can be found on their website at ngmn.org

 

About NGMN Alliance

The NGMN Alliance (NGMN) is a forum founded by world-leading Mobile Network Operators and open to all Partners in the mobile industry. Its goal is to ensure that next generation network infrastructure, service platforms and devices will meet the requirements of operators and ultimately will satisfy end user demand and expectations. The vision of NGMN is to provide impactful industry guidance to achieve innovative, sustainable and affordable mobile telecommunication services for the end user with a particular focus on Mastering the Route to Disaggregation / Operating Disaggregated Networks, Green Future Networks and 6G, whilst continuing to support 5G’s full implementation.

NGMN seeks to incorporate the views of all interested stakeholders in the telecommunications industry and is open to three categories of participants/NGMN Partners: Mobile Network Operators (Members), vendors, software companies and other industry players (Contributors), as well as research institutes (Advisors). NGMN invites all parties across the entire value chain to join the Alliance in these important endeavours.

 

GFN_Reducing_Environmental_Impact

Reducing Environmental Impact

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This NGMN publication highlights how operators can assess the lifecycle environmental impact of their network infrastructure  in terms of emissions, energy, and water footprint.

The report identifies the use of Lifecycle Assessment in relation to energy and emissions and demonstrates how to calculate Water Footprint. Based on these tools, strategies are outlined for how to manage and reduce the environmental impact by, for example, selecting and using materials in the design of network infrastructure that have lower emissions and energy requirements and by for example switching to data centre cooling methods that use less water.

The publication was developed with input from across the industry – with NGMN Partners representing operators, vendors, and research institutes.

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Cover image of The Green Network which will take place on January 23-25, 2024.

The Green Network Summit 2024

Virtual // by

We were excited to join Telecom TV´s The Green Network Summit where we explored together with other senior industry leaders the best practices for monitoring and reducing energy consumption in networks and shared NGMN´s actionable recommendations.

All content, including the panel sessions, are now available to view on-demand here.

Get our latest Energy Effinciency Publication.
We invite interested industry players to become part of our endeavor. 

Network Energy Efficiency Phase 3A

NGMN issues Energy Saving Strategies and Best Practices for Mobile Network Operators (MNOs)

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Frankfurt, Germany, 05 December 2023. Today the NGMN Alliance (NGMN) issued the next publication concerning energy efficiency: “Effective Energy Saving Strategies and Best Practices for MNOs” providing the industry with further guidance on technical strategies to mitigate high energy costs.

“For the last 18 months high energy costs have put a renewed focus on technical strategies to reduce and better manage energy consumption as well as to ensure network resilience and stability”, said Arash Ashouriha, Chairman of the NGMN Alliance Board and SVP Group Technology at Deutsche Telekom. “This publication – which builds on our recent network energy efficiency roadmap (Green Future Networks: Network Energy Efficiency Phase 2) – provides MNOs with best practice energy saving and energy management techniques”, he stated.

Laurent Leboucher, Member of the NGMN Alliance Board, Group CTO and SVP Orange Innovation Networks at Orange, said “Saving energy is a must for all MNOs. Orange is proud to work in NGMN on this important topic which has immediate and ongoing relevance for the industry. We look forward to a forthcoming further publication on this topic due in Q1-2024 which will provide longer term guidance including on how Radio Access Network (RAN) sharing is a significant and cost-effective way of saving energy”.

“Sharing energy saving strategies and industry recommendations best illustrates NGMN’s efforts in adding immediate value to the industry whilst at the same time shaping the industry’s future direction through our core programmes”, emphasised Anita Döhler, CEO at NGMN Alliance.

This latest NGMN publication was developed with input from across the industry – with NGMN Partners representing operators, vendors, and research institutes. It provides a short guide to the best practices for operators to reduce and better manage their energy consumption whilst simultaneously maintaining desirable network Quality of Service (QoS) and handling a continuous increase of data traffic volume.  The report makes the following best practice recommendations:

  • Accelerate the transition from legacy networks (e.g., 2G and 3G) to more energy efficient technologies (e.g., 4G and 5G) whenever possible.
  • Deploy additional 5G/4G spectrum refarmed from 3G to increase network data throughput and capacity, and to keep up with the high data growth experienced during the past years.
  • Leverage the capabilities of the latest RAN technologies to achieve higher energy efficiency.
  • Implement Intelligent RAN energy saving features to save more energy in both 4G and 5G layers.
  • Update RAN sites with state-of-the-art energy efficient RAN equipment and antennas which facilitate all mobile generations, 2G to 5G.
  • Replace onsite air-conditioning units with energy efficient cooling.
  • Deploy renewable energy sources and battery storage units, which reduce the network dependency by electrical grids.
  • Use intelligent energy saving features together with battery storage equipment to further increase the network stability.

In addition, the report notes that the industry needs to work further to address several key areas including reducing base station ‘wake up times’ for extreme deep dormancy features and encouraging planning authorities to streamline and accelerate the approvals processes in relation to deploying renewable energy solutions at or near cell sites.

The publication can be downloaded here.

Collaboration is key to driving the industry’s most important challenges such as NGMN’s strategic pillars: Operating Disaggregated Networks, Green Future Networks, and 6G. NGMN therefore invites all parties across the entire value chain to join the Alliance in this important endeavour.

 

About NGMN Alliance

The NGMN Alliance (NGMN) is a forum founded by world-leading Mobile Network Operators and open to all Partners in the mobile industry. Its goal is to ensure that next generation network infrastructure, service platforms and devices will meet the requirements of operators and ultimately will satisfy end user demand and expectations. The vision of NGMN is to provide impactful industry guidance to achieve innovative, sustainable and affordable mobile telecommunication services for the end user with a particular focus on Mastering the Route to Disaggregation / Operating Disaggregated Networks, Green Future Networks and 6G, whilst continuing to support 5G’s full implementation.

NGMN seeks to incorporate the views of all interested stakeholders in the telecommunications industry and is open to three categories of participants/NGMN Partners: Mobile Network Operators (Members), vendors, software companies and other industry players (Contributors), as well as research institutes (Advisors). NGMN invites all parties across the entire value chain to join the Alliance in these important endeavours.

NGMN_GFN_NEE_Phase3A_Cover

Network Energy Efficiency Phase 3A

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In recent years, Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) have faced a more complex business environment. Tightening energy markets as well as spikes in natural gas prices have contributed to a challenging energy landscape. The significant increase in MNOs’ operational costs impacted efforts to deliver on transformational connectivity goals and meet investment targets.

This NGMN publication was developed with input from across the industry – with NGMN Partners representing operators, vendors, and research institutes – and provides the MNOs  with immediate and timely best practice energy saving and management techniques.

To mitigate high energy costs but also supporting the decrease of generated carbon footprint by lowering energy consumption, whilst simultaneously maintaining desirable network Quality of Service (QoS) and handling a continuous increase of data traffic volume.

 

6G Summit Abu Dhabi 2023

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We were excited to be part of the 6G Summit in Abu Dhabi, organized by the Technology Innovation Institute.

Our Programme Manager Chris Hogg spoke about “Green Future Networks: How NGMN enables sustainable networks and the road to 6G” and discussed together with other industry experts the “Sustainable Networking & Impact of 6G on Climate Change”.

Access our latest publication on Green Future Networks and 6G here.

We invite interested industry players to become part of our endeavor. 

IEEE_speaker_card

IEEE CSCN 2023

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“𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗣𝗔𝗧𝗛 𝗧𝗢 𝟲𝗚”

Our CEO Anita Döhler spoke at IEEE CSCN 2023 about NGMN’s path to 6G and delved into NGMN’s pivotal role in propelling the Mobile Industry towards the next generation of networks.

She placed particular emphasis on NGMN’s three strategic topics, building upon each other: Mastering Disaggregated Networks/E2E Operating Disaggregated Networks, Green Future Networks and 6G.

The work on 6G prioritises amongst others: network energy efficiency, network simplification, and the imperative to respond to market demand with innovative use cases, clearly differentiating from use cases delivered by the fully implemented 5G.  Within this context, Anita also discussed our publication, “𝟲𝗚 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁: 𝗔𝗻 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝗩𝗶𝗲𝘄“, shedding light on critical perspectives and insights it offers. Check out NGMN´s latest 6G publications here.

We invite interested industry players to join our endeavor: ngmn.org