Ericsson on how operators can work in direction of net-zero targets and ship 5G sustainability with out compromising efficiency
“Our goal as an trade, as a society, may be very clear,” Ericsson Head of Product Line 5G Sibel Tombaz mentioned throughout a chat on 5G sustainability on the current Telco Sustainability Discussion board (obtainable on demand right here). “We have to go away an excellent future for our grandchildren.” Within the context of demand for mobile-enabled providers persevering with to develop with out indicators of slowing, Tombaz laid out a three-step method to re-visioning community KPIs with sustainability top-of-mind, and doing so in a means that doesn’t sacrifice efficiency.
Tombaz counted some 250 industrial 5G networks around the globe (60% of that are powered by Ericsson), and famous the agency’s personal objective of decreasing the power consumption of its merchandise by 40% between 2021 and 2025, and attending to net-zero by 2040. Associated to its provide chain, Ericsson desires to chop emissions by 36% by 2025.
She characterised the bigger transitions as from the “community machine” to the “community organism” The previous is characterised as configuration-based, semi-static and algorithmic and the latter as intent-based, power and consumer expertise aware, and a key enabler for societal digitalization. “We consider the following wave of 5G will allow taking the primary steps in direction of this goal.”
The high-level steps—all geared round “doing extra with much less”—as laid out by Tombaz are:
- Bringing sustainability to the middle of community planning
- Develop and modernize the present community whereas scaling up 5G
- And use AI/ML and automation for clever operations that increase power financial savings
To deliver 5G sustainability extra meaningfully into the community planning course of, Tombaz emphasis multi-faceted measurements of power effectivity, together with power consumed by gear measure in kWh, power consumed per information quantity measured in kWh/GB, and consumer expertise metrics like uplink/downlink speeds. These measurements, taken as a complete, will inform “What’s one of the simplest ways to supply extra with much less,” she mentioned. “We’re actually trying into offering the insights from a number of KPIs on the identical time, so we are literally making the correct enter for our community design and optimization.”
The following is modernizing present community infrastructure whereas scaling up the deployment of 5G; the main target right here is “after we look into our community, and when you’re going to optimize the capability and consumer efficiency whereas minimizing the power consumption, we can’t have a look at one part solely…We have to have a look at the entire website.” This can inform a deeper understanding of which website components devour what quantity of power and supply what sort of consumer worth. In the actual world, this could imply an operator is rolling vans to deploy mid-band spectrum utilizing huge MIMO radios. In that course of, they will additionally substitute legacy radios with leaner, extra performant, extra environment friendly gear. This one-touch method can increase website efficiency in a really materials means whereas additionally delivering a near-50% lower in embodied carbon emissions.
The third step, AI-ML based mostly automation and energy-smart operations, entails leveraging superior radio applied sciences that may decide present (and predict future) community visitors masses and primarily put varied radio components into sleep mode when not wanted. Whereas a consumer wouldn’t discover any type of degradation in efficiency, operators will surely discover materials reductions in energy consumption and the related increase in system-level power effectivity.
Giving a real-world instance, Tombaz referred to as out Ericsson’s work with Telstra which, once more, revolves across the theme of “doing extra with much less.” Particularly on a per-site foundation, Telstra swapped out 12 legacy radios supporting low-band frequencies with three tri-sector radios for a 50% power financial savings; six radios supporting mid-band FDD had been changed with three radios for a 27% power financial savings; and legacy huge MIMO arrays had been changed with fashionable gear for a 38% power financial savings—so from 21 radios to 9 radios. With the addition of power saving software program, together with micro sleep for transmit and cell sleep mode, and future plans for MIMO sleep mode, AI MIMO sleep mode and baseband energy saving. Community-wide, what Ericsson and Telstra put in place resulted in a 37MWh each day power financial savings.
“The important thing focus right here is that with the newest {hardware} and software program options, we will have a huge effect to power financial savings,” Tombaz concluded.
For extra on RAN modernization and power effectivity, obtain this information from Ericsson.
