Tag Archive for: Green Future Networks

Publication Green Future Networks: Telco Supply Chain Sustainability Cover

Green Future Networks: Telco Supply Chain Sustainability

In this first publication of NGMN’s Green Future Networks Phase 2 in 2023, the key challenges mobile operators face in developing sustainable supply chains are outlined. A review of the emerging regulatory and standards environment is conducted.  Approaches and best practices in developing sustainable supply chains are identified by relating the emerging business and regulatory environment to examples of the changes that operators and their supply chain partners may need to make, both at strategic and operational levels. Integrating sustainability goals into the operator’s core objectives is of key importance as well as selecting suppliers whose own sustainability strategies are aligned with these goals. Finally, a checklist based on the best practices in the industry is provided to support operators in developing a sustainable procurement strategy. Examples from across the industry are included that highlight that companies are already embracing many of the concepts identified in this publication.

 

ICE2022

NGMN’s Industry Conference & Exhibition from Sep 7 – 9 in Paris with Top Speakers and Exhibitors

Frankfurt, Germany, August 24, 2022:

NGMN Alliance will hold its highly recognized global Industry Conference & Exhibition (IC&E) taking place every two years, on September 7-9, 2022, at the Pavillon d’Armenonville in Paris. C-Level and other top management participants will share their perspectives on today’s and tomorrow’s opportunities and challenges and the future of mobile telecommunications.

The event features an eminent and outstanding line-up of speakers while offering unique networking opportunities with world’s top leaders from major operators, network vendors and academia. The IC&E agenda focuses on NGMN’s three strategic focus topics, Mastering the Route to Disaggregation, Green Future Networks and 6G – with a particular focus on Green Future Networks.

Arash Ashouriha, SVP Group Technology Innovation, Deutsche Telekom and Chairman of the NGMN Alliance Board, explains: “Our conference is known to be ‘the platform’ where key industry leaders and decision makers meet and exchange with eco-system partners. This year’s agenda, confirmed speakers and exhibitors speak for themselves, our audience can expect a valuable and exciting event.”

Laurent Leboucher, Group CTO & Senior Vice President at Orange Innovation Networks and NGMN Alliance Board Member, concludes: “Bringing the IC&E to Paris is an honour and with Orange being a major sponsor and exhibitor, I look forward to the event and many relevant discussions with industry peers.”

“We are happy and proud to present to our audience this notable speaker and exhibitor line-up at our signature event. Globally recognized top speakers from around the globe representing operators, vendors, system integrators and research institutions provide their insights and visions for the most pertinent subjects of our industry”, adds Anita Döhler, CEO of NGMN Alliance.

The IC&E 2022 starts on September 7 with a Grand Opening evening event including the opening of the exhibition. On September 8, the conference focuses on the two topics of “Mastering the Route to Disaggregation” and “The Road to 6G”. On September 9 the focus is with “Green Future Networks” including green tech innovation.

Individual presentations paired with panel discussions moderated by renown industry experts Camille Mendler, Gabriel Brown, Guy Daniels and Stéphane Téral address vital themes of the telecommunications industry:  How is the mobile industry mastering the route to disaggregation, with an analyst’s view and lessons learned from greenfield and brownfield operators, as well as relevant insights provided by vendors and system integrators. How to ensure 6G meets market and industry requirements? What are likely to be the key technology enablers offered by 6G? What do we learn from 5G and how will 5G evolve to 6G? How is the mobile industry managing sustainability challenges? And how is this achieved whilst deploying 5G and moving to 6G?

Alongside the conference, an exhibition showcases leading international industry and research partners. This year Autonom, Crossflow Energy, Eurecom, Fraunhofer, Huawei, InterDigital, Keysight, Kynetic Energy, Mowea, Nokia, Orange, and Rosenberger demonstrate state of the art concepts and solutions. This years’ IC&E sponsors include: Alium, Avanci, Bell, Deloitte, Ericsson, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Huawei, IBM, Juniper Networks, ng-voice, Orange, Qualcomm, Rohde & Schwarz, Sisvel, Spinner, TELUS and umlaut.

TelecomTV is the exclusive broadcasting partner of the NGMN Industry Conference & Exhibition 2022.

For further information, please visit: ice2022.ngmn.org

____

 

Further information

Sep 7 – Grand Opening Night including the Opening of the Exhibition  

Michaël Trabbia, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at Orange, will hold the keynote speech on the Grand Opening Night on September 7.

Day 1, Sep 8 – “Mastering the Route to Disaggregation”, “Cloudification” and “Road to 6G”.

NGMN Alliance CEO Anita Döhler will welcome all participants, followed by keynote speeches from Arash Ashouriha (Deutsche Telekom) and Laurent Leboucher (Orange). Ibrahim Gedeon (TELUS), Howard Watson (BT), Marisa Viveros (IBM), Vivek Gupta (Google Cloud) and Andrea Calvi (TIM) will discuss what the key success factors are to enable the route to cloud native implementations as well as its impact on network automation. After Stéphane Téral shared the analyst’s view, key operators in greenfield and brownfield situations as well as vendors will discuss how to address the opportunities and challenges of disaggregated networks and what is required to achieve successful launches and operations – featuring Joachim Groß (1&1), Haider Syed (Rakuten Symphony), David Bachmann (ng-voice), Petr Ledl (Deutsche Telekom), Carlos Fernandes (Deutsche Telekom) and Arvin Siena (PLDT & Smart Communications). In the afternoon, Aurelio Nocerino (Accenture), Pavan Kurapati (Juniper Networks) and Anne Stephan (Rohde & Schwarz) individually present their views and insights on how the mobile industry is Mastering the Route to Disaggregation and what is required to enable innovation, speed and agility in developing, deploying and operating new services. Verena Weber (OECD), Takehiro Nakamura (NTT DOCOMO), David Lister (Vodafone), Javan Erfanian (Bell Canada), Yuhong Huang (China Mobile), Takki Yu (SK Telecom), Peter Merz (Nokia), Wen Tong (Huawei), Christian Bauer (Trumpf) and Frank Fitzek (TU Dresden) share their views on what the 6G’s drivers are and how 6G can contribute to the needs of our globe by 2030.

Day 1 of the IC&E also accommodates the IPR Business Lunch on 5G Patent Pools. Laurie Fitzgerald (Avanci), Bill Geary (Alium), Thomas Rößler (Sisvel) and the NGMN IPR Chair Serge Raes (Orange) share their expert views, hosted by NGMN Legal Counsel Stefan Engel-Flechsig.

Camille Mendler, Chief Analyst at Omdia, Gabriel Brown, Principal Analyst at Heavy Reading, and Stéphane Téral, Chief Analyst at LightCounting Market Research, moderate the conference and the panels on the 8th of September.

Day 2, Sep 9 – “Green Future Networks” and “Green Tech Innovation”

After a welcome by NGMN Alliance CEO Anita Döhler, Steve Martineau (Senior Advisor to COP26) will hold a keynote speech. Saima Ansari (Deutsche Telekom), Hakan Ekmen (umlaut), Graziano Catucci (HPE), Philipp Deibert (Deloitte) and Jeroen Cox (KPN) will kick off the first session, highlighting topics such as roadmaps to carbon neutrality and implementation examples by MNOs and Vendors, best practice: deployments of energy efficiency standards, E2E service footprint measurement, requirements to metering, green networks KPIs and methodologies – the route to an industry standard and the eco-design of products. This will be followed by a special session, in which four innovative green start-ups present their solutions for the telecommunications industry featuring Sandra Stickel (Kynetic Energy), Robert Johnen (Mowea), Hugues Marceau (Autonom) and Nick Primavesi (Crossflow Energy). Jane Rygaard (Nokia), Ana Maria Galindo (Orange), Yogesh Malik (Tele2), Mats Pellbäck Scharp (Ericsson) and Philip Song (Huawei) will share their views on how the mobile industry manages its own sustainability challenges and how this is achieved whilst deploying 5G and moving towards 6G.

Guy Daniels, Director of Content at TelecomTV, moderates the panels and guides through day 2 of the conference.

Metering for Sustainable Networks

Green Future Networks: Metering for Sustainable Networks v1.0

This publication’s recommendations are:

  • To identify and understand the behaviour of energy intensive or under-utilized parts of the network and in order to optimize and manage them in an energy efficient way it is recommended to deploy metering. Metering with more granular measurements will enable to check the energy performance of equipment in real time condition as well as to improve and promote the use of renewable energy source in a more optimized way.
  • It is recommended to deploy metering at the network and technical sites to measure the energy consumption and other relevant parameters such as temperature and humidity of the active equipment e.g. radio, backhauling and core equipment.
  • Standardized metering shall be defined with generic unified architecture for data collection, site internal communication architecture ideally equipped with higher level intelligent Next Generation Control Unit or Data Gathering Unit. In addition, measurement parameters with given accuracy as well as data collection and interfaces, including virtualized and NFV environments should be standardized
02_GreenFutureNetworks_Square_3400x3400_Copyright-1

NGMN Calls for Metering Solutions to Reach Net-Zero Emission Targets

Frankfurt, Germany, January 25, 2022: The Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance (NGMN) today publishes its fourth Green Future Networks White Paper: “Metering for Sustainable Networks”. With this publication, the Alliance calls for metering solutions as an important step for operators to reach net-zero emission targets.

For operators, the reduction of power consumption has been identified as an essential aspect to achieve net-zero emission targets by 2050 or before and to reduce their operational expenses as well. An accurate metering system is a prerequisite to make sure that energy consumption can be properly monitored, measured, and optimised. The NGMN White Paper outlines the metering goals in different parts of mobile networks and the advantages that can be realised with the implementation of metering solutions.

With much of the energy being consumed in the radio networks, particularly base stations, metering solutions have the biggest immediate impact in radio networks. The growing number of sites is another aspect that should not be neglected. The new White Paper mainly focuses on base station equipment and their technical sites.

All insights and recommendations given in this White Paper are also applicable to other parts of the mobile network – including core networks, data centres, and backhaul.

Laurent Leboucher, SVP Orange Innovation Networks, Orange and Member of the NGMN Board says: “We, like NGMN, in particular ask equipment manufacturers to share architectures and communication protocols to improve the measurements of the energy consumption in base stations, being the most energy consuming part of mobile networks. Our request also applies to all other equipment in the network. Accurate metering solutions are absolutely essential to operators – to make progress on energy efficiency, measuring is essential. This will contribute to our net-zero targets and also to reducing networks operational expenses.”

The proposed recommendations for metering solutions assume a unified architecture of a metering system and data collection at site level, for application by operators, thus enabling deployment with low effort. This White Paper covers different use cases and operating models, different topologies of sites including sites owned by one operator, site sharing between different operators, tower companies and RAN sharing scenarios as well.

Another NGMN recommendation is to collaborate with standard developing organisations (SDOs), to create a uniform and more sustainable metering solution for mobile networks by standardising parameters to be measured, data collection methods, interfaces, and communication protocols. Furthermore, it is important to establish an interface between network operators and network equipment suppliers, including manufacturers and vendors.

With these requirements to the industry, NGMN has achieved another milestone in its Green Future Networks Project. This White Paper rounds off Phase 1 while the Alliance has started working on Phase 2 with further publications on various topics to follow in 2022.

02_GreenFutureNetworks_Square_3400x3400_Copyright-1

NGMN Defines Industry Standard for a “Global Green Networks Benchmark”

Frankfurt, Germany, January 18, 2022: The Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance (NGMN Alliance) today announces the establishment of methodologies and KPIs for a Global Green Networks Benchmark. The Alliance’s new initiative is part of its Green Future Networks Programme and is set for generating a global standard for the industry. While current mobile network benchmarks mostly concentrate on comparing service quality and user experience, the new Global Green Networks Benchmark will place the focus on green network operations.

Arash Ashouriha, SVP Group Technology Innovation, Deutsche Telekom and Chairman of the NGMN Board states: ”Implementing concrete actions to mitigate climate action is a key priority for our industry. At Deutsche Telekom, our goal is to make sure that everyone can #takepart and connect over a green network. We are committed to ambitious net zero targets and are continuously optimizing our network to ensure the best quality for our customers while striving to systematically reduce the energy consumption. The Global Green Networks Benchmark from NGMN will certainly help the entire telco industry by providing transparency regarding the operator’s sustainability. In addition, it offers operators a unique opportunity to prove their sustainability credentials towards their customers and be recognized for the positive environmental and societal impact.”

Anita Döhler, CEO at NGMN, emphasizes: “There is a clear need for a Global Green Networks Benchmark. Being recognized for the operation of Green Networks will encourage Mobile Network Operators to engage even more in exploring innovative methods and solutions to implement their networks in an energy efficient manner and to increase the focus on reducing the E2E services’ environmental footprint, for instance, through improved eco-design of products and the implementation of new business models fostering a circular economy. Such efforts will also stimulate supplier innovation.”

The general objectives of this NGMN initiative are:

  • to establish globally applicable KPIs and methodologies,
  • to define a global evaluation methodology, and
  • to define the data sources for the assessment and how such data are obtained

In the first step, the benchmark will focus on high level sustainability indicators, followed by more detailed assessments at subsequent stages.

The networks’ traffic volume is expected to increase exponentially in the coming years and keeping the energy curve flat will be a challenge for the industry. In addition, climate change is becoming one of the major concerns from the end-user perspective resulting in more and more end-users looking for sustainable services from their network providers. Although many operators have committed to net-zero targets, there is a high potential in improving network energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which NGMN is addressing with all its Green Future Networks’ activities.

NGMN invites interested industry players to join this new endeavor for the benefit of the global ecosystem.

NGMN_Alliance_v2

NGMN Alliance Continues to Grow with New Partners Joining the Alliance

Frankfurt, Germany, December 15, 2021: The Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance (NGMN Alliance), today announces that Bharti Airtel, Comba Telecom, Google, IBM and Telia have joined the Alliance in 2021. With a new positioning earlier this year, the NGMN Alliance put the focus on the most burning topics of mobile telecommunications today and in the future – thus addressing and embracing the entire industry: Mastering the Route to Disaggregation/Operating Disaggregated Networks, Green Future Networks, 6G as well as the continuous support of 5G’s full implementation.

“We very much look forward to a mutually inspiring and beneficial collaboration with Bharti Airtel, Comba Telecom, Google, IBM and Telia and welcome them to our Partnership. Winning these new Partners clearly indicates that our new strategy pays off. Our focus topics address the mobile telecommunications industry’s biggest opportunities and challenges today and in the future, and we have a clear mission to create impact for the benefit of the entire ecosystem”, says Anita Doehler, CEO, NGMN Alliance.

“We are delighted to join the NGMN Alliance and look forward to collaborating with other members to build a roadmap for networks of the future.” says Randeep Sekhon, CTO, Bharti Airtel.

Steve Canepa, Managing Director, Global Communications Sector, IBM, adds: “We firmly believe in the importance of collaboration to accelerate change and innovation – especially in complex topics such as sustainable next generation networks. Joining the NGMN Alliance enables IBM to collaborate with industry stakeholders by leveraging hybrid cloud, AI and automation technologies to drive a sustainable future driven by compute and connectivity.”

With Bharti Airtel, Comba Telecom, Google, IBM and Telia joining the Alliance, NGMN Alliance continues to grow. Today, the operator driven Alliance counts 24 operators among its Partnership, including 79 companies in total, with further growth in progress for 2022.

The NGMN Alliance will be bringing together its Partners and other industry experts at its bi-annual Industry Conference & Exhibition in Paris, September 7-9, 2022. Further details will be announced shortly.

Illustration of a hand holding a plant

NGMN Identifies Key Energy Saving Solutions for Mobile Networks

Frankfurt, Germany, November 9, 2021: Today, the Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) Alliance released “Green Future Networks: Network Energy Efficiency”, a publication which focuses on best possible ways of reducing the energy consumption of mobile networks, a key concern of Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) and an important step towards greener networks. In its publication, NGMN studies the different existing and future energy saving features and their potential when rolled out in the networks – among others, the usage of automatic wake-up/sleep modes, virtualisation technology, and the usage of efficient power amplifiers combined with massive Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO).

Key aspects include:

  • application of energy efficiency techniques across the three levels of next generation network operation – the base station equipment level, the site level and the network level
  • importance of leveraging the spectral efficiency of the 5G air interface and its more advanced sleep modes
  • importance of deploying sleep mode functions that shut off hardware when the load is low (path to zero watt at zero load)
  • usage of renewable energy for on-grid and off-grid sites, smart batteries, power efficient power supplies
  • free and liquid cooling solutions in technical sites
  • flexible cooperation between 5G and LTE
  • positive effects of massive MIMO solutions in 5G
  • advantages of virtualisation technology for energy efficiency of mobile networks
  • benefits of Artificial Intelligence (AI) based energy saving solutions and what it takes to build such algorithms

Laurent Leboucher, SVP Orange Innovation Networks, Orange states: “Tomorrow, networks will be greener by design! Today, Orange is already working hard to save energy consumption and reduce the carbon footprint of its networks, making continual progress, through its research efforts and operational deployments. However, this needs to be an industry move and this is where the NGMN Alliance plays a strategic role in unifying the industry. With our knowledge and experience in this area, Orange is delighted to co-lead NGMN‘s Green Future Networks project. As an industry, altogether, with the right technologies and skills, we will be able to fulfill our ‘Green’ commitments.”

Anita Döhler, CEO of the NGMN Alliance, says: “To continue improving the energy performance as well as reducing the global networks energy consumption, vendors and operators are encouraged to put a strong focus on the solutions identified by our Green Future Networks project. The path to zero watt at zero load for future network generations is to be continued, especially, considering the use of AI techniques to intelligently coordinate and optimize more precise decisions for activation and deactivation of the sleep-mode and shut-down features, as well as on-demand network dimensioning.”

The publication also addresses server virtualisation technology which allows workloads to be optimally scheduled on hardware, for example by consolidating workloads onto a reduced number of CPUs for energy efficiency. With virtualisation technology, multiple applications and workloads can be run on a single server, thus increasing energy efficiency. This allows multiple network workloads to run in Virtual Machines (VMs) or containers, thus enabling efficient use of the common server resources.

Despite the fact that operators are already increasing the use of energy saving features, forecasts point to a significant rise in energy consumption over the next couple of years due to considerable increase in traffic across a vast range of use cases, new technologies and spectrum, a great deal of connections, and network densification. Here, AI could play an important role. By predicting and learning the traffic behaviour, AI algorithms define the activation/deactivation of sleep mode functionality and site energy management without impacting the overall performance including Quality of Experience (QoE). AI is still in an early phase and more development and research is needed to reach its full potential. AI based energy saving solutions can greatly increase the energy performance of cellular networks.

The NGMN Alliance emphasises the importance for all vendors and operators to continue the implementation and activation of advanced energy saving features supported by the 5G standard. In a next step, NGMN will look at further opportunities in phase 2 of its Green Future Networks project. Interested parties are invited to contact the NGMN Office for further information and how to join the Alliance.

The present publication is the third deliverable of the NGMN Green Future Networks project following two publications in July 2021. The first, “Sustainability Challenges and Initiatives in Mobile Networks” introduces the subject of sustainability in mobile networks and provides context of this broad and complex topic, the second, “Network Equipment Eco-Design and End to End Service Footprint” gives an overview of the existing procedures and visions for eco-design of Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) network equipment. The next publication in this context will be published later this month and will focus on ”Metering for Sustainable Networks”.

Video-Thumbnail_GFN-at-5G-World_640x360_Playbutton-1

NGMN Green Future Networks Project Update at 5G World

You are currently viewing a placeholder content from Vimeo. To access the actual content, click the button below. Please note that doing so will share data with third-party providers.

More Information

Ana Maria Galindo Serrano, Orange and Saima Ansari, Deutsche Telekom provide an update on the status of the NGMN Green Future Networks project at 5G World.

Topics they touched on:

  • Carbon neutrality strategies and the use of renewable energy to reduce energy carbon footprint
  • Use of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to improve the eco-design of products, lean packaging, critical raw material usage optimization and other topics to reduce the sector’s impact
  • Measurement of operators’ end-to-end service environmental footprint including scope 3, to provide information regarding CO2 equivalent emissions of their data consumption to end users
  • Green features overview to allow the network to better adapt to the traffic demand and to consume electricity only when needed
  • Measuring the energy consumption at different levels of networks to optimise the energy efficiency of the network as a whole
Video-Thumbnail_640x360_Playliste

Disaggregated Networks and Green Future Networks at 5G World

You are currently viewing a placeholder content from Vimeo. To access the actual content, click the button below. Please note that doing so will share data with third-party providers.

More Information

A strong trigger for NGMN’s transformation was the imperative to address the industries’ major challenges, now and in the upcoming years. That is why our focus topics are: How to master the route to disaggregation concentrating on the E2E operating model, green future networks and 6G.

Arash Ashouriha and Anita Döhler discuss two of  NGMN’s focus topics: Disaggregated Networks and Green Future Networks at 5G World. Arash also shares insights from the Deutsche Telekom perspective.

news

NGMN Claims Pole Position in Disaggregation Operating Model, Green Networks and 6G

Frankfurt, Germany: Today, the Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) Alliance announces its new strategy and claims pole position in addressing the key major Operator & Ecosystem challenges in the coming years.

As an operator driven organisation, NGMN is in a unique position to provide value, guidance and leadership to its members and the whole ecosystem in:

  • Mastering the route to Disaggregation
  • Sustainability / Green Future Networks
  • 6G

Anita Doehler, CEO NGMN, says: “Operators are facing challenges on their route to disaggregation, cloudification and softwarization. One burning topic in this area is the design and execution of effective new E2E operating models. Green Future Networks is another highly important topic the industry ecosystem needs to jointly approach. In addition, early work on 6G has started. Therefore, we have streamlined our Work Programme to focus on these three extremely relevant topics to deliver significant impact in 2021 and beyond. At the same time, we remain committed to further support 5G’s full implementation.”

Mastering the Route to Disaggregation

For mastering disaggregated, cloud- and software-based networks, Mobile Network Operators need to start preparing now for future-proof operating models that are built on the orchestration of powerful ecosystems of solution partners, openness and flexibility to integrate new partners and technologies, highly diverse set of skills and capabilities to drive value and efficiency. NGMN’s new Work Programme will thus focus on the end-to-end operating model, considering, amongst other, the following key aspects: processes, technology, tools and skill requirements. NGMN will provide blueprints as well as relevant guidance towards the industry players and lay out roles and opportunities provided by disaggregation. The initiative aims to shorten time to market and to provide support in the selection and deployment of efficient operating models by Mobile Network Operators.

Providing Impactful Guidance for Green Future Networks

The application of various techniques to improve network energy performance is one fundamental objective for Mobile Network Operators since the number of users, connected devices and general usage continue to grow. The ICT network consumes the most energy in the content delivery process and electricity represents our principal source of greenhouse gas emissions. An additional objective is waste reduction, amongst other enabled by the eco-design of products and equipment. To tackle such important topics, this well-established NGMN project focuses on four major aspects: end-to-end services footprint, eco design, network energy efficiency and on-board metering. Consolidating a common view amongst operators and collaborating with equipment vendors and other industry players enables NGMN to provide a significant industry contribution in achieving UN and GSMA sustainability goals. NGMN plans to release frequent impactful guidance on sustainability to the ecosystem.

 Driving Successful Implementation of 6G

Work focusing on beyond 5G has already started worldwide. The NGMN Alliance strongly believes that societal and operational requirements need to be considered in the development of a new generation. Operators are in a unique position to engage with end users, including vertical industries as well as user groups representing societal needs. The NGMN Alliance is determined to provide early and timely direction for global 6G activities. Its 6G Work Programme currently focuses on vision and drivers, including societal and operational aspects for 6G. This will be followed by use cases and end-to-end system requirements. Actively engaging with different stakeholders and facilitating multilateral cooperation with the wider ecosystem at the right time will support in developing a meaningful vision and drive a successful implementation of 6G in the future. NGMN plans to publish the first version of its “6G Vision & Drivers” White Paper around the end of Q1 of 2021.

Interested industry players are invited to join NGMN in these important initiatives.