Thread by @disruptivedean

Back to Day 2 of @NGMN_Alliance #NGMNICE22 moderated by @guydaniels of @TelecomTV

Sessions today are about green networks & sustainability

Solemn introductions by Guy & Antia Doehler of NGMN commemorating yesterday's sad loss of the Queen

@NGMN_Alliance @guydaniels @TelecomTV First speaker is @martineaus , a #COP26 adviser on sustainability, setting wider global & societal context for the telecom industry.

Notes GSMA stats (31% more traffic, 5%+ electricity, 2%+ CO2 in 2021) show that they are "decoupled". But notes that last number must fall

Interestingly that suggests to me one of the more absurd arguments I've heard recently "we must reign in data traffic growth to reduce CO2 emissions" or "don't send that email" (!!) is a fallacy.

We know it, sustainability advisers know it, so let's stop pretending bits = CO2

Listing "6 action areas for 6G"

- virtualisation = dematerialisation, needs less "stuff"
- zero-waste & recycling-led "circular business models" (mentions huge impact of steel, concrete etc in networks, not just electronics)
- design networks that can survive 2degC+ climate

- Connectivity for all (that's a challenge for 6G affordability vs. capabilities I think). Personally I think that's a 4G/5G thing (or other techs
- Assisting resilience & decarbonisation for consumers
- "Deliberative lobbying" - aligning all govt advocacy goals with net zero

Next is Saima Ansari of DT talking through its sustainability journey. She’s also the main green network rep for NGMN itself

Noting that it’s important to understand how / where green energy is generated and stored. DT building some of its own capacity

Notes that Scope 3 is 98% of total DT emissions, from suppliers & impact on customers

Huge challenge & needs close cooperation with suppliers to deal with this

Next up is @Accenture umlaut arm’s CEO talking about green network KPIs

Makes a good point about the need for a good baseline to compare improvements against

Important to have actionable & manageable green network KPIs that are comparable across companies and geographies

There’s a hidden angle to this slide IMO

A tricky issue for the 5G/6G mobile industry will be what to do, where there is lower CO2 impact for a given device or application to use fibre+WiFi instead

There could be a lot of energy-inspired offload in future

Interesting energy efficiency classification model from @HPE - curious to know how they view “traffic models” in this context

Seems like a cool idea to improve 5G “sleep mode” by using AI to guess where devices are, rather than reporting all the time

Interesting to see @HPE view of #6G priorities such zero energy devices, as well as water savings & land usage

Btw - I just published this post about some of the geopolitics & harmonisation debate from yesterday's #6G session

linkedin.com/posts/deanbubl…

Now @Deloitte with a really good slide on impact on energy consumption with network changes

I’m not sure what “nitrogen backup” is though

I’m really not convinced that “circular” and recycling / waste issues should be that tightly coupled to energy/CO2 use

Various aspects of sustainability are important, but I think energy is 10x or 100x more urgent

Also an argument to separate E from S & G in ESG

Now @VodafoneGroup up at #ngmnice22

A bit unclear how things like outsourcing to 3rd party towercos fit here

Notable that JVs (presumably including network sharing) only halved by 2030

Not convinced with the energy / GB calculation by @VodafoneGroup here

Need to separate out by MBB vs FWA, rural vs urban, indoor vs outdoor, freq bands etc

Aggregate figures on “traffic growing exponentially” can obscure critical detail. It’s bad statistical practice

Interesting chart of different options for sourcing low/zero carbon energy

Personally I’m curious to know which telco will be the first to have its own small modular nuclear reactor & hydrogen electrolysis plants

Good to see some commentary on hydrogen from Vodafone “something we need to explore more”

In Scope 3, looks like Purchased Goods & Services + JVs are a huge chunk

I suspect that the roles of towercos and network-sharing JVs are being greenwashed out of some telcos’ reported CO2

We should be wary of interpreting press releases about progress on Net Zero

Now @6WINDsoftware talking about energy impact of various virtualised network functions

Ah, the inevitable ignorant Q

"How can we stop customers wasting data" - typical tosh about 4K/8K video & "blame Netflix"

Usual irrelevant comment on valuations of cloudcos vs telcos

Thinly veiled attempt to align with stupid "tax the cloud" some telco dinosaurs are pitching

(In the interests of saving energy, I hope you'll appreciate that's a low-res GIF. And I posted it over Wi-Fi rather than cellular)

KPN speaker now noting that huge savings of energy have been made in the network (down 45% despite 24x growth in traffic) largely because of copper switch-off

Saying mobile may be harder because of frequency choices

But once again, traffic volumes & energy can be decoupled

Policymakers & regulators should be *extremely* skeptical of telecom lobbyists trying to use data volume growth as another reason to push back on Internet / cloud companies and "full Internet access" or neutrality

Disingenuous & credibility-damaging telcowash

And another sustainability cliche coming out... 5G "enabled" savings in energy consumption elsewhere in industry

The idea that the network (& 5G specifically) is somehow responsible for 100% of any CO2 savings from smart factories, cities, transport etc. is totally ridiculous

Slightly weird concept of adding small wind turbines to large cell towers

Can potentially generate 2/3 of tower power needs. Not sure how well that translates to smaller urban monopoles, rooftops etc but I guess could be good for rural sites

Putting 750 units on 52 Vantage towers in Germany this year

Aiming for 50K units over next few years

Good slide from @nokia on energy efficiency in mobile infrastructure

Liquid cooling is a new one for me. Makes sense

This is cool (well, warm). Nokia is pitching using waste heat from cell sites for hot water production

May have regulatory hurdles (& poses carbon “accounting” complexities), but it’s clever thinking

Interesting set of stats from @ericsson - networks consume about 12x the energy of datacentres