Verizon has established a website that outlines its efforts to conserve energy in the communications network.
In remarks prepared for the Broadband Forum, a worldwide organization that promotes broadband issues and energy efficiency and conservation in broadband technologies, Chuck Graff, Verizon’s director of corporate and network technology, said the initiatives include implementing strict standards governing the energy efficiency of new network equipment ordered by the company; making greater use of fuel cells; and testing geothermal heating and cooling facilities.
Graff also said that Verizon’s broadband fiber-to-the home and wireless networks have a major role to play in helping businesses and consumers conserve energy. Graff estimates that the equipment used in Verizon’s fiber-to-the-home consumes only 38 percent of the electric power that copper high-speed Internet facilities consume.
“Setting and achieving goals and using available technologies are things we all can do,” Graff said. “And one of the triggers for great conservation advances will be America’s broadband networks and services — the lifeblood of the forum and its goals. As Americans start to use broadband networks more and more, they save energy, too.”
Graff, who last June headed Verizon’s innovative mandate that requires all new network equipment to be at least 20 percent more efficient than prior technologies, said the new standards — coupled with programs that can track consumption and the carbon equivalent impact of new technologies — will drive Verizon’s campaign to improve the efficiency of its networks. This can be achieved even as networked communications burgeon in coming years, he said.
http://www.verizonnebs.com
