Green Communications: Principles, Concepts and Practice

Preface

Energy efficiency and green communications aim at addressing the quest for sustainability regarding power resources and environmental conditions. For telecommunication service providers, energy efficiency merely means cost reduction, in terms of capital and operational expenditures. For government bodies and regulators, energy efficiency and green communications is a duty to strengthen corporate responsibility towards the environment and motivate an ecological generation of network equipment and systems.

Energy efficiency evolved into a significant parameter of equipment design, architecture and management of telecommunication systems but has not been taken into account until the Kyoto Protocol early in 1997, which raised concerns regarding global warming. Initial efforts concentrated on network edge equipment and peripherals, communication protocols and then progressively on wireless radio and cellular systems as well as on fixed networks. Nowadays, after a steep increase of studies, innovation and practice, energy efficiency and green communications are entering a mature phase, with established solutions addressing particular aspects of a telecommunication system.

Despite such momentum, the potential for energy conservation is still huge especially since advanced services and applications are increasing the complexity of network usage and the demand for enhanced capacity, speed and network resources, driving the growth of network infrastructure deployment. In addition, ...