The telecom service industry will invest more than 61 percent of its capital expenditures into sustainable infrastructure by 2016, representing a $194 billion market, according to a Pike Research report.
The forecast investment, 65 percent of which will go into mobile networks, has been driven by commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the falling cost of opening base stations run on clean energy, and efforts to minimize rising energy prices, according to Pike Research. However, the path to reaching these goals has shifted away from adding sources of clean power and towards energy efficiency initiatives, according to the report.
Telecom providers and their vendors are expected to focus on mobile networks because of their high energy use. Base stations and switching centers within mobile can consume between 60 percent and 85 percent of an operator's network energy.
Pike Research says the telecom industry will largely concentrate on ensuring the newer 4G networks require less power than legacy networks, by making improvements to radio frequency amplifiers, switches, network architectures and topologies and fresh air cooling. The improvements will push emissions levels associated with mobile networks down 5.6 percent to 251 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2016, the report estimates.
