Can Bell Labs really cut network power by 1000 - by Peter Judge

Views and Opinions on Green IT (Jan 12 2010) Power and Cooling

1. 

   It's tempting to think that the  Green Touch initiative is more about getting good publicity for Alcatel Lucent, than about reducing greenhouse emissions. But on balance, I think that would be unfair to the project. 

   The consortium, which emerged this week from discussions at Bell Labs, Alcatel Lucent's research arm, and has set itself the goal of creating technology in five years, which can reduce the emissions caused by the world's data networks, by a factor of 1000. That's an aim no-one could fault, but a lot of people looking at the announcement will be well aware that most news stories about Alcatel Lucent, a merged company dubbed by the Financial Times as a poster child for much that is wrong in the telecoms equipment industry. When Alcatel and Lucent merged in 2006, the company was worth €30bn. Last week it was worth around €5.6bn ($8bn).

   But the state of the company shouldn't blind us to a good idea. Bell Labs' sterling scientific reputation is enough to make the world take notice - so far the US and UK governments have backed the idea, along with a good roster of researchers(including MIT and France's INRIA), and operators including China Mobile, Telefonica and the one-time owner of Bell Labs, AT&T. 

   The group is going to focus on the and particularly wireless ones, currently expanding rapidly - and the science is based on the fact that smaller more localised cells should use less power, as long as they are organised efficiently and the backhaul between them is minimised. A commitment to reduce energy is the kind of move the international telecoms standard body, the ITU has been wanting to see for some time. 

   The move also nicely complements moves to make data centers greener, which often goes hand in hand with centralisation. While larger data centers are more efficient in themselves, using less power per MIP of processing, the fact that data processing is concentrated means that the work is being done further from where the data is used, and this will increase the amount of energy used in communications networks. 

   Greener data networks, then would remove one of the small downsides to larger data centers. 

   So can Green Touch succeed? I think it's got a good shot at doing some useful work. We'll take on trust that the Bell Labs boffins are right in their assessment of the oppotrunity, so the biggest hurdles it faces are organisational. 

   First, it needs to sort out the funding for the work it eventually scopes out. Positive statements cost governments nothing, but they'll be expected to put their hands in their pockets eventually, as will the industry members. 

   Secondly, it needs to spell out how it will handle intellectual property issues. If the consortium members create greener technology which can be used in their products, then there must be an agreement upfront on the terms by which that will be shared. 

   And thirdly, it needs to be broader. Alcatel Lucent provides a reducing proportion of the world's network technology. The consortium must have other giants in it, like Ericsson or Huawei, if it will be taken seriously.  

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