ELLEN MANNING GREENER NETWORKS
Not just greener, but CLEANER, CHEAPER, BETTER, NETWORKS
copper predecessors of around 8cm. The drive to save space was behind Corning’s development of bend insensitive fibre ClearCurve in 2007 – a key innovation, Cortijo says, in saving space in areas like data centres as well as extending the reach of the connection without the need for regeneration. “ClearCurve is addressing the problem of how you can install fibre in smaller spaces where you have to take very dramatic turns or curves of the fibre and the advances we have done in the other optical fibre,” he added. Another space-saving solution is Corning’s MiniXtend Cable - 50% smaller than its standard cables - and the company is also looking into reducing the component size. Changes like this may seem small but can make big di erences. That’s why ProLabs has developed fibre optic transceivers with 30% less power consumption, says Lefevbre. “We are under the impression that every little bit helps. “So we are using a technology that allows us to essentially get 30% less power consumption from the transceiver itself. It may be small but in a very large data centre it does add up. Since the fibre optic transceivers are such an important and growing part of that network we think it’s significant that we get power down 30% lower than typical architectural network.” Sustainability It’s not just the fibre and component manufacturers taking the green agenda seriously. Like Virgin Media, Deutsche Telekom puts sustainability front and centre. Birgit Klesper, Senior Vice President Group Corporate Responsibility/Human Resources, says: “We are working hard at reducing our own carbon footprint, for example, by ensuring that our ambitious infrastructure upgrades do not cause a corresponding increase in energy consumption. Significantly, IP technology has helped us in this regard, by making our network’s data transports both faster and more energy-e cient.” The company is one of just 5% of participating companies to have been A-listed by the independent Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and recently held a special event, “The Impact of ICT on climate change – curse or blessing?” to discuss ways of playing a part in the industry reducing its CO2 emissions. It’s clear many elements of the industry are playing their part when it comes to building greener networks. Their motivations may vary, but does that really matter? In Tony Lefevbre’s view maybe not. “There are altruistic motives for us to be looking at green - we want to be good citizens,” he says. “But the reality is that there are commercial implication as well. “Maybe it’s all working together for the better good.”
Besides satisfying increasing legislation on recycling and energy use, greener optical networks can be cheaper, perform better and use less space, writes Ellen Manning.
O ptical networks are growing at an the demands increase. But not without a cost. In 2007 Gartner analysts estimated that the global ICT industry accounted for roughly 2% of the world’s CO2 emissions - on a par with the aviation industry. extraordinary rate. As quickly as the industry provides higher bandwidth and capacity, Smarter At the time, Gartner predicted that financial, environmental, legislative and risk-related pressures would force IT organisations to get ‘greener’. They were right. Nearly a decade later in 2015, the SMARTer2030 study by the Global e-Sustainability Initiative found ICT products and services had the potential to save nearly ten times as much in terms of CO2 emissions as the industry itself produces. The issue hasn’t gone un-addressed. Major players from product suppliers to transceiver developers and network installers all have a drive for greener networks among their plans for the future. The motivations are a mixture of legislation and corporate social responsibility obligations and commercial benefits. Take Virgin Media, which aims to connect 4million more homes and businesses to its network without seeing its carbon footprint grow. “We want to make sure that our carbon footprint won’t grow from a 2014 baseline,” the company’s website says. “Achieving this goal will see a reduction in energy and fuel for every byte of data our consumers use and for every home and business we serve. It’s likely to deliver financial savings in associated energy and carbon tax costs too.” With environmental and commercial drivers at play, there are clear motivations for greener optical networks. But how? “I believe optical networks are
much greener than any other type of transmission,” says Juan-Manuel Cortijo, EMEA marketing director at Corning. “Basically they allow us to transmit more information with less energy. Carbon footprint Less energy obviously means reducing the carbon footprint because that’s one of the first advantages in terms of making optical networks greener.” For starters, optical fibre is future-proof, with a longer life expectancy than copper thanks to its ability to accommodate a demand that is growing from 10G to 100G or even 400G. Alongside its high capacity, its ability to carry information longer distances without regeneration also helps when it comes to saving energy and reducing power usage, Cortijo says. Nowhere are the benefits of reduced power usage more obvious than in data centres, where it brings commercial benefits alongside environmental ones. “When you cable within the data centre, owners and managers are looking at any way they can reduce the power consumption because to them it’s a very commercially significant part of their operation”, says Tony Lefevbre, VP of Product Management & Marketing at ProLabs. With that in mind, saving energy within data centres is a significant part of creating a greener network, whether by reducing the space fibre accommodates or the need for energy-hungry cooling. Compact size According to a survey by the Association for Passive Optical LAN (APOLAN), one of the top five benefits of passive networks – alongside low power usage – is its small space requirement compared to copper, bringing benefits of reduced equipment and cabling requirements and limited powering and cooling needs. Cortijo describes optical fibre cables of less than 1cm diameter doing the same work as
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ISSUE 11 | Q4 2017
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