The Geneva-based ICT agency of the United Nations, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has teamed with the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to tackle the sustainability of Radio Access Networks (RANs).
RANs are the wireless networks that connect end-user equipment such as mobile phones and tablets to the core network.
The new standard, known as ITU-T L.1330, is the first to define metrics and measurement methods for the energy efficiency of live RANs.
It accounts for the fact that optimizing the energy efficiency of equipment within a network does not guarantee an improvement in the network’s overall energy efficiency.
In analysing the interactions between equipment and devices on the same networks, ITU-T L.1330 will be used to calculate the overall energy efficiency of whole networks.
“Improving the energy efficiency of ICT has become central to all fields of technical standardization at ITU,” said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao. “We are moving towards a world that will host billions of connected devices, things and objects, making energy efficiency essential to the functionality and environmental sustainability of ICT networks.”
