Significant progress has already been made

Making telecommunications network which feed three years with the energy networks of today suck in one day... It is the great project of Alcatel-Lucent. The French-American OEM announced yesterday in London the creation of an industrial consortium of and scientists provides for objective reduction per mile of the energy infrastructure of the Internet and the telephone. This initiative called "greentouch" signatories, include prestigious American universities such as MIT, Harvard and Stanford. research institutes Europeans such as Inria, CEA-Leti in France and Imec in Belgium; big three operators, Telefonica, Swisscom, China Mobile; other suppliers of specialist networks of semi-conduc indicators, Samsung and Freescale. Within five years, they hope to enter a process of standardization by international agencies to begin to install this new carbon plumbing in a decade. In the meantime, the networks produce 300 lmillions of tons of CO2 each year, or as much as 50 million cars...

CEO of Alcatel-Lucent, Ben Verwaayen, who chairs the commission on climate change of the British Medef (the CBICe), is very committed to this project. Information and communication technologies are 2 of carbon on the planet and half is due to the networks, terrestrial radio antennas in submarine cables. When they buy infrastructure to Alcatel-Lucent, operators are also now energy specifications. Approach has it of unpublished it is part of the laboratories, says Gee Rittenhouse, Director of the research: "at the Bell Labs, we are asked: what is the minimum amount of energy required to operate a network". We have calculated that he could theoretically use 10,000 times less than today ' today. And it is from here that we have set our goal of reducing. "Result, the scientific project has become a strategic priority: 20 of thousand the Bell Labs researchers will be involved.

Technology breakdown

Within five years, reflects Gee Rittenhouse, "going to have many inventions in the circuits, transport, communication protocols..." Significant progress has already been made. Today, we can operate a modern transatlantic link with the energy required for lighting 200 light bulbs of 100 watts. But the old networks are much less efficient. The operators therefore have any interest to replace as soon as they can. But while the fiber and optical equipment have to substantially reduce the number of aircraft carrying electronics (to "Redo" signal or "amplify it"), it will take a technological failure. Gee Rittenhouse is formal: "the average energy reduction in industry is 10 to 20 per year, while the flow rather tends to double every eighteen months." It may delete all old copper networks, will not be not what would be to operate at constant energy.

To meet this challenge, the consortium hopes to recruit other partners, including Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia Siemens directly competing for Alcatel-Lucent. The presence of three major carriers is already a powerful signal - they are the ones that will implement the future networks. Two questions remain however. Trucks and boats remain far appearance the most energy intensive of the trade. And the terminals, becoming more numerous and powerful (telephones, computers, televisions, box...) they also remain hungry energy...