Fibre for the planet

Via this series of successful business cases, the FTTH Council Europe's Sustainability Working Group aims at promoting full-fibre connectivity as the most sustainable access network technology.

 

In December 2019, the European Commission presented the European Green Deal with the ambition of making Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, boosting the economy, improving people's health and quality of life, caring for nature, and leaving no one behind.

More and more, fibre connectivity is recognised as a key asset to align the digital and sustainability agendas. Being the most sustainable telecommunication infrastructure technology, full-fibre is a prerequisite to achieving the European Green Deal and making the European Union’s economy more sustainable.

As a result, the need to work collectively towards a more sustainable society has become a strategic objective not only for policy makers but for the vast majority of private organisations, part of the FTTH value chain.

 

Build fibre
and
Save energy

This session of our website has the objective of giving voice to the industry, bringing Members of the FTTH Council Europe on stage in showcasing their best practices around the sustainability issue. What are the concrete actions put in place by the FTTH value chain to reduce its carbon footprint? Browse our sustainability success stories to get the answer.

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To make environmentally responsible decisions, network operators need credible figures about power consumption of the broadband equipment they procure and use. The introduction of energy-efficiency labels allows them to make well informed decisions and reduce their carbon footprint. The labels state a product's power consumption and the level of compliance with the Code of Conduct on Energy Consumption of Broadband Equipment as a framework for providing credible and comparable data. S&T Iskratel believes that the whole broadband industry needs to join the initiative, help operators effectively reduce the environmental impact, and take a positive step towards a greener Europe.

Investing in power-efficient network technologies can significantly reduce the carbon footprint of broadband access networks. Network operators should consider accelerating the phase-out of copper, selecting the most power-efficient network equipment, and upgrading PON networks to XGS-PON or 25G PON to increase the bits delivered per watt consumed. For this purpose, Nokia developed a new chipset that brings power savings of more than 50% in the broadband network and helps operators to meet their emissions goals with growing usage and increasing penetration of broadband.

ISP’s can achieve significant reductions in their energy usage, and thereby reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, by switching to GWHPs to cool their street cabinets, rather then using conventional air conditioning. In addition GWHPs require less maintenance reducing the amount of truck rolls needed for service.

Green Home Solution for Sustainability Targets
May 9, 2022

Green Home Solution for Sustainability Targets

| Vendor/Reseller (Products)

Copper Migration to FTTx is already the consensus of telecom industry, now as the latest solution, FTTR (Fiber To The Room) extends the fiber to each room and allows users to enjoy stable gigabit connections and seamless roaming throughout the house, furthermore, it can also bring significant power saving and emission reduction value to the end users, indirectly to the operator, we call it green home solution. Based on Huawei practice, we found out each FTTR ONT uses only 0.37 kWh per day and saves 38.5 kWh every year comparing to traditional ONT plus repeaters, that is, the green and environment-friendly design enables users to enjoy better network experience with 20% less power consumption. In 2020, Huawei FTTR ONTs (OptiXstar series) are in service in more than 40 million households worldwide, saving over 1.5 billion kWh of electricity and reducing CO2 emissions by more than 730,000 tons, equivalent to planting more than 30 million trees.

Assessing the carbon footprint of the network infrastructure by using Product Environmental Profiles, (PEP), shows that a significant part (35% in our model) of the passive infrastructure carbon emissions comes from the last 100 meters. Drop cables are the necessary links that generate the main part. As small installation lengths are required and mostly handled by hand, drop cables usually come in drums of shorter length. This leads to an increase in the number of drums, and consequently to a reduction in the maximum shippable length per pallet. The redesign of the drop cable using an eco-design approach made it possible to go from 3 km of drop cable per pallet to 12 km, therefore drastically reducing the logistics carbon footprint.

About the
Sustainability
Committee

Digitalisation will be at the core of EU Commission's ambition of making Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. With this context in mind, the Sustainability Committee has been created with the main objective of promoting full fibre as the most sustainable access network technology and enabler of multiple applications which can contribute to reducing the carbon footprint of our activities. Remote working and learning being the most obvious examples.

 

Moreover, the Committee supports all stakeholders of the Fibre to the Home value chain in their efforts to make their respective activities more carbon neutral.

Interested in the activities of the Sustainability Working Group?

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