Alcatel-Lucent

Our goal of making communications networks dramatically more energy efficient than they are today has the attention of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the independent United States government agency in charge of interstate and international communications regulations.

By Paul Kenefick, Vice President, Public Affairs for the Americas Region

Left to right: Julius Genachowski, Chairman FCC, Jon Wellinghoff, Chairman FERC and Thierry Van Landegem, VP Bell Labs

On May 18, we were among several industry leaders, technology and energy policymakers, state governments and foreign embassies that participated in the FCC’s Clean Technology Showcase in Washington, D.C., which highlighted developments in communications technology and energy efficiency.  FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski hosted the event, which included U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Federal Energy Regulatory Chairman Jon Wellinghoff as special guests [you can find out more on http://blog.broadband.gov]. Other demonstrators included Ericsson, GE, Panasonic, Google and Samsung.

During the event, we highlighted our leadership role in GreenTouch™, the research consortium initiated by Bell Labs, and displayed recent advances in modular cooling, in sustainable power for mobile base stations, and the recent European Commission recognition with its Sustainable Energy Europe Award for Alcatel-Lucent’s Alternative Energy Program [read more in this post].

Thierry Van Landegem, Vice President at Bell Labs, led the discussion on how Alcatel-Lucent was addressing the issue of energy usage in communications networks in the near term and the long term:

“Today our R&D teams are helping to ensure network equipment uses significantly less power with no impact on performance. We focus on building smarter, eco-sustainable networks at all layers (access, transport and core) with a framework that addresses hardware, software, network and site innovation.  By the end of the year, our goal is to improve the energy efficiency of our key products by at least 20%.  For the longer term, our industry needs to invent and deliver radical new approaches to energy efficiency that will be at the heart of sustainable networks in the decades to come – that’s what the GreenTouch global consortium is all about.”

Many of the participants showed enormous interest in GreenTouch, the operation of the consortium, and its ambitious goal of making communications networks 1,000 times more energy efficient than they are today.

FCC Chairman Genachowski asserted that GreenTouch is a truly inspiring initiative towards developing sustainable networks for the future.

He also validated Alcatel-Lucent’s significant contributions through new technological capabilities that both reduce the energy consumption of networks and minimize their impact on the environment.

Learn more about how Alcatel-Lucent helps protect the environment, here and discover our solutions for eco-sustainability at: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/eco