“Going green” is now on almost every corporation’s agenda. The communications sector also is playing its part to help save the environment through various innovations in solution design. Izwan Ismail talks to Nokia Siemens Networks’ head of sales, radio access and service core and applications, Asia South and Australasia New Zealand, Dr Ralf Haas on how modern equipment can help soothe environmental impact.

Haas says there are a number of ways communications companies can play their role in conserving the environment.

The Flexi Base Station is said to use less power and can be operated with minimum air-conditioning.

BY 2015, it is expected that five billion people will be connected across the globe from the current three billion. To cater to their communications needs, communications service providers will have to expand their infrastructure and add more telecommunications base stations to allow for wider mobile and broadband coverage.

This would translate into increased energy consumption and carbon emissions since energy needs to be constantly supplied either through electricity or a generator to operate the telecom base stations.

Making a difference

According to Haas, there are a number of ways communications companies can play their role in conserving the environment.

“One is through the use of energy-efficient solutions. This is because most of the energy in a typical telecommunications network is consumed by the wireless network’s base station sites as these sites need energy for air-conditioning and to run the base station.”

In response, Nokia Siemens Networks has come up with an environment-friendly base station technology called Flexi Base Station. The four main elements of this technology are minimising the number of base station sites, minimising the need for air-conditioning to cool the sites, using the latest base station technology, and deploying software features that optimise the use of radio access for wireless communications.

Haas says base station technology has improved a lot over the past few years.

“For example, in 2005, an average base station needed 2,500 watts of electricity supply but today, they can be operated at just 800W of power. By 2010, we are targeting to decrease the power usage to 650W per base station,” he shares.

“The energy consumption of a base station site can be reduced by up to 70 per cent with this new solution. This significant reduction in energy consumption creates a more environmentally friendly network operation and lower operating costs for service providers.”

Less is more

Communications companies also can reduce energy consumption by building a network with a minimum number of base station sites. So, intelligent network planning is critical for identifying optimum site locations.

The use of specific software also can help in the energy conservation effort.

“The Nokia Siemens Networks energy-efficient solution uses software features to increase coverage, thus minimising the number of required base station sites,” Haas says, adding that the use of software can improve base station energy efficiency by balancing consumption according to load.

For example, since night base station traffic is much lower than during peak daytime hours, part of the base station can be shut down or its capacity can be set on power save mode at night.

Nokia Siemens Networks also has made improvements to air-conditioning consumption in its base stations.

“Traditional base station sites are located indoors, where the typical temperature of 25 degrees Celsius is maintained with high energy-consuming air-conditioning. By increasing the ambient temperature to up to 40 degrees Celsius, energy consumption can be reduced by up to 30 per cent in existing base station equipment,” Haas explains.

Local perspective

Haas believes that local communications service providers are up to the challenge to preserve the environment.

“We are constantly talking to service providers like DiGi, Celcom and Maxis on ways to reduce environmental impact,” he says.

Besides that, Nokia Siemens Networks is working with the World Wildlife Foundation through expertise sharing to develop environmental strategies.