GreenTouch Consortium Reveals Its Active Projects to Increase Network Energy Efficiency, from Large Scale Antenna Systems to Home Network Gateways
GreenTouch Technology Roadmap to be Unveiled at Open Forum November 17
AMSTERDAM ‒Oct. 26, 2011 ‒ GreenTouch™, a global industry initiative dedicated to dramatically improving the energy efficiency of information and communications technology (ICT) networks by a factor of 1,000, has published a roster of projects that are currently underway within GreenTouch.
Detailed project descriptions are posted at http://www.greentouch.org/index.php?page=projects; capsule descriptions appear below. All the work is carried out by GreenTouch members, which include service providers, academic and industrial research institutions and non-governmental organizations. The consortium provides funding opportunities for academic institution members involved in GreenTouch project work.
The Core Optical Networking & Transmission Working Group has responsibility for the following projects:
- Service Energy Aware Sustainable Optical Networks -- a clean-slate core network design project that provides an underlying dynamic wavelength capability as a basis upon which other projects can build
- Highly Adaptive Layer for Meshed On-Off Optical Networks -- creating a global optimization technique across the entire mesh to maximize optical network efficiency
The Core Switching & Routing Working Group is working on the following:
- Router Power Monitoring – working to provide a detailed power profile of a range of network equipment and will develop power-measuring hardware and software
- Optimum End-to-End Resource Allocation -- investigating the optimum allocation of resources in a network in a dynamic fashion, so as to reduce the network’s power consumption
- Zero Buffer Router Architectures – an extension of the clean-slate core-network design project (above) that is considering the impact of having small buffer or buffer-free communications on service offerings in such an energy-optimized optical network
- Switching and Transmission -- studying the optimization of the physical topology of IP over WDM networks with the objective of minimizing the total power consumption of the network
- Single Chip Line Card -- focusing on silicon-photonic interconnects to reduce the power consumption in the interconnect structure by bringing the optical interface as close as possible to the electronic processing
The Mobile Communications Working Group is developing the following:
- Beyond Cellular Green Generation – investigating how to overcome existing limits, going beyond the traditional cellular architecture through a complete separation of the signaling network and the data network
- Green Transmission Technologies -- focuses on fundamental research into the energy-efficient design of transmission schemes and radio resource management strategies: developing trade-offs that leave network service satisfactory to various users.
- Large-Scale Antenna Systems – carrying out research in the following areas related to Large-Scale Antenna Systems: Architecture and Deployment, Algorithms and Simulation, and Energy Modeling and Control
In the Wireline Access Networks Working Group, the following projects are active:
- Low-Energy Architecture -- identifying the access solution with the lowest possible energy consumption for the scenario where a PON-based fiber infrastructure is available, and for a greenfield scenario where there is no existing infrastructure
- Virtual Home Gateway – analyzing the most energy efficient distribution of the home gateway functionality across the network
"The projects now underway demonstrate the value of a consortium such as GreenTouch: we provide the platform for innovative researchers, engineers, and technology experts from around the world to work together and accelerate their efforts from creation to standardization," said Gee Rittenhouse, chairman of the GreenTouch Consortium. "Through collaboration, we have a far greater impact and make faster progress on increasing the energy efficiency of ICT networks than our members could make individually."
"Because our members represent such a range of industry sectors, our technical projects can address a wide variety of technology areas, and this will enable both incremental and sweeping improvements in ICT network energy use," said Dan Kilper, chairperson of the Technical Committee of the GreenTouch consortium.
Interested parties are invited to join the Consortium and contribute to these and future projects. More than 300 participants from over 50 member organizations are now active in GreenTouch. A GreenTouch Members Meeting and Open Forum will take place at the Edgewater Hotel in Seattle, Washington, U.S.A., November 14-17, 2011. GreenTouch will unveil its comprehensive Roadmap during the morning session of the Open Forum on November 17; attendance is free to the public, but advance registration is required. The access code for non-members to use in registering is GTOpenForum2011.
About GreenTouch
GreenTouch is a global consortium of leading service providers, academic and industrial research institutions and non-governmental organizations working together to define the challenges, identify the trends and issues and develop solutions that will achieve the goal of delivering within five years the architecture, specifications, roadmap and demonstrations of key components needed to increase the energy efficiency of ICT networks ‒ in particular, the service provider networks that make up the Internet ‒ by a factor of 1,000 from current levels.
In June 2010, GreenTouch received an award for energy efficiency innovation at the Global Telecoms Business Innovation Awards event. For more information, go to www.greentouch.org.
Contact:
Judith Vanderkay
+1 781-876-6208
jvanderkay@virtualmgmt.com
