Category: Publications

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Green Future Networks: Metering in Virtualised RAN Infrastructure

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Being “green”, which entails energy efficiency and sustainability without compromising performance, is increasingly recognised as a hot topic and a prerequisite for enduring success today and in the future.

Through this publication, the NGMN Alliance delivers vital recommendations for industry standards, facilitating more precise and real-time estimations of energy consumed by virtualised or cloud-native network functions. It highlights the necessity of enhancing current 3GPP Virtual Network Function (VNF) / Cloud Network Function (CNF) energy consumption estimation frameworks for more precise measurement of energy consumption by VNF/CNF on shared IT/Cloud infrastructure.

Furthermore, the publication emphasises the implementation and the consideration by standardisation bodies of the Redfish® model published by DMTF as a starting point, and addresses the questions which data/parameters are measured, how, and which standards to align to.

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ITU-R Framework for IMT-2030

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In this publication “ITU-R Framework for IMT-2030: Review and Future Direction” a close alignment is observed between the IMT-2030 framework from ITU-R and NGMN’s vision for 6G. This close alignment covers vision, usage scenarios and essential capabilities, particularly related to practical and sustainable deployment and emphasising harmonised global standards for mobile networks.

NGMN goes on to provide recommendations and guidance on ITU-R aspects as it moves forward in the next stage of the IMT-2030 process. This latest publication marks the next step towards guidance for E2E requirements and sets an important framework for future technology discussions towards 6G.

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Reducing Environmental Impact

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This NGMN publication highlights how operators can assess the lifecycle environmental impact of their network infrastructure  in terms of emissions, energy, and water footprint.

The report identifies the use of Lifecycle Assessment in relation to energy and emissions and demonstrates how to calculate Water Footprint. Based on these tools, strategies are outlined for how to manage and reduce the environmental impact by, for example, selecting and using materials in the design of network infrastructure that have lower emissions and energy requirements and by for example switching to data centre cooling methods that use less water.

The publication was developed with input from across the industry – with NGMN Partners representing operators, vendors, and research institutes.

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Network Energy Efficiency Phase 3A

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In recent years, Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) have faced a more complex business environment. Tightening energy markets as well as spikes in natural gas prices have contributed to a challenging energy landscape. The significant increase in MNOs’ operational costs impacted efforts to deliver on transformational connectivity goals and meet investment targets.

This NGMN publication was developed with input from across the industry – with NGMN Partners representing operators, vendors, and research institutes – and provides the MNOs  with immediate and timely best practice energy saving and management techniques.

To mitigate high energy costs but also supporting the decrease of generated carbon footprint by lowering energy consumption, whilst simultaneously maintaining desirable network Quality of Service (QoS) and handling a continuous increase of data traffic volume.

 

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Network Energy Efficiency Phase 2

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The mobile industry through NGMN’s Green Future Networks Programme has come together to find solutions to increase network energy efficiency and enable operators to reduce their electricity consumption. In this publication we outline and prioritise the various options available to increase network energy efficiency. In particular energy saving approaches are organised into three broad categories (and time-horizons):

• process optimisations – short-term (chapter 2)
• engineering optimisations – medium-term (chapter 3)
• new technologies – long-term (chapter 4)

For each energy saving approach information is provided – based on data from live networks and/or simulations – on the size and scope of the potential energy savings.

 

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6G Trustworthiness Considerations

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This NGMN publication provides a comprehensive guide for establishing trustworthiness within 6G networks. It identifies critical technological trends impacting the trustworthiness of 6G networks, including Network AI, open-source solutions, virtualization and containerization and quantum computing.

By adopting a holistic approach to security and privacy, NGMN not only paves the way for the realisation of future 6G use cases, but also ensures the preservation of end-users’ trust and interests. The publication serves as a vital resource for industry professionals seeking to navigate the complex landscape of 6G network trustworthiness.

With this, NGMN guides the industry through designs and implementations that bolster security and strengthens privacy protection. It offers actionable recommendations and insights to foster secure and privacy-respecting networks.

 

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6G Position Statement

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This essential publication guides a course for the future of communication networks and calls the industry to transform the way new technology generations are introduced enabling compelling new services and capabilities for end users while streamlining network operations and prioritising sustainability.

It provides comprehensive guidance across several key requirements and design principles, including network simplification, absolute energy reduction, network AI transformation and predictive network management, safe and resilient infrastructure, global 6G standards, software upgrade to 6G, no intrinsic need for hardware refresh, no compromise to existing services (Voice) and access across mobile, fixed and non-terrestrial networks.

 

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Recommendation on Base Station Active Antenna System Standards V3.0

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Consumers, businesses and industry more than ever require mobile connectivity that is secure, reliable and of high-quality. The radio link between the device and the network is a critical factor in realising these performance needs.

Our latest “Recommendation on Base Station Active Antenna System Standards” provides the industry with an updated set of parameter definitions, measurement methodologies and reporting processes. This enables a uniform way to describe the electrical and mechanical characteristics of the network side of the radio link (the “base station antenna”).

By using such a common approach describing active base station antennas, mobile networks can be better and more cost-effectively planned, engineered, and operated to ensure the high-quality mobile service that users, businesses and industry demand.

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Cloud Native Manifesto

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On our journey to highly flexible, sustainable, and resilient networks for the future, we believe in applying the following cloud native principles to all layers of network infrastructure, applications, and services*:

1. Decoupled infrastructure and application lifecycles over vertical monoliths;

2. ‘API first’ over manual provisioning of network resources;

3. Declarative and intent-based automation over imperative workflows;

4. GitOps** principles over traditional network operations practices;

5. Unified Kubernetes (or the like) resource consumption patterns over domain-specific resource controllers;

6. Unified Kubernetes (or the like) closed-loop reconciliation patterns over vendorspecific element management practices; and

7. Interoperability by well-defined certification processes over vendor-specific optimisation.

We also believe that openness and compatibility principles need to be key drivers of future Telecom and network services implementations to ensure we leverage Cloud Native principles to encourage software – orchestration – and hardware disaggregation.

Building a cloud native architecture calls for a joint effort among telecom operators, suppliers, and partners. This is described in this document by stating a few principal requirements and by outlining the area of focus for this journey from an operator point of view.

* Does not imply order of priority

** Everything as code, single point of truth, immutable source of trust

 

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Green Future Networks: KPIs and Target Values for Green Network Assessment

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This NGMN publication outlines a set of KPIs and target values alongside a framework for consolidating the KPIs into an overall measure. The framework encompasses two major pillars: Environmental KPIs as well as Energy and Quality of Experience KPIs. The outlined KPIs build upon and utilise the best practices of existing telco sustainability initiatives and frameworks and, in an industry first, define target values and a scoring methodology for consolidating multiple KPIs into a single measure. Further NGMN suggests to combine energy efficiency and service quality KPIs to produce a useful measure of how an operator is improving its energy efficiency while maintaining the high service quality end users expect from their mobile network.

As the industry gains experience with these metrics, it is anticipated that the KPIs and the framework will be further developed to ensure continued alignment with industry needs. This will include ensuring that the NGMN KPIs and framework continue to be aligned with work of other industry bodies – with the ultimate aim of ensuring a single set of industry wide agreed KPIs.

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