App Measures Energy Use of Communications Networks

Alcatel-Lucent’s research arm, Bell Labs, unveiled an app that forecasts trends in energy consumption and efficiency based on a wide variety of traffic growth scenarios and technology evolution choices. The Global 'What if' Analyzer of NeTwork Energy ConsumpTion (G.W.A.T.T.) app shows how much power is consumed at each point in the network, making it possible to identify hot spots where the most energy is consumed, and also providing a way to identify how different technologies can make the network more efficient.

G.W.A.T.T. addresses a variety of questions relevant to the communications industry, including:

• Where is most of the energy consumed in the end-to-end network today?
• How much does it cost to power the network?
• How much energy is consumed by wireless networks? By data centers?
• What is the impact of traffic growth and new applications and services on the energy consumption of current networks?
• How will the network's energy consumption evolve based on technology evolution over the next four years?

Energy consumption models and scenarios used to build G.W.A.T.T. are based on forecasts and network modeling from Bell Labs, as well as Alcatel-Lucent's CTO organization and independent consortia including GreenTouch and the Global e-Sustainability Initiative.