energy climate change and the environment: Sustainable solutions

Our portfolio offers energy optimization services and solutions to help customers and society at large reduce costs and CO2.

Our commitment to energy efficiency extends beyond our own products and services to encompass society’s carbon impacts as a whole.

Energy efficiency is integral to our entire product range. Innovations like the Ericsson Tower Tube complement our core products, such as our energy-efficient radio base station, RBS 2216, which made up over half our GSM sales in 2008. It can run at up to 50 degrees Celsius, avoiding energy-intensive air conditioning. Our RBS 6000 is lower in weight and size, reducing transport costs and CO2 emissions. Our SmartEdge routers offer lowest CO2 per subscriber to deliver triple play services.

Efficiency does not stop at products. Through site power management, we also address energy use at sites. Our Base Transceiver Station (BTS) Power Savings software offers a sleep mode during low traffic. Passive cooling can reduce energy use by up to 25 percent. At off-grid sites, diesel can be replaced by solar, wind and biofuel alternatives. Our hybrid solution, perfect for larger sites, alternates between diesel generators and specialized batteries, yielding fuel savings of up to 50 percent.

Radio network design is complex, and sometimes the most efficient option can be fewer, larger sites. In Australia, Ericsson is working with Telstra to provide ultra-high capacity with fewer nodes. By 2010, 18 regional Mobile Switching Center servers will be replaced by a single MSC Server Blade Cluster pool at two sites. This Mobile Softswitch will be up to 60 percent more energy-efficient per subscriber.

For fixed broadband, a new DSL product generation was developed, which achieved a 30 percent power reduction.

Tools such as life-cycle management and energy optimization consultancy services help our customers lower opex, secure energy provisioning to site and minimize environmental impact. Sharing large telecom sites between multiple operators boosts economies of scale and can improve energy efficiency by up to 30 percent. This offers operators a smart way to decrease their energy consumption, opex and CO2 emissions.

Broadband can play a leading role in improving basic services while reducing CO2 emissions – both by replacing physical products with services, and by helping people use resources more efficiently.

Our smart grid solution helps utilities and households better regulate energy use, and our Connected Home allows for monitoring and automating energy consumption, lighting and surveillance.

Both mobile and fixed broadband enable a collaborative approach to travel substitution. Intelligent transport systems, which send traffic and road information to mobile phones, can help reduce emissions. The Business Communication Suite enables users to select the optimal way to communicate, and includes services such as Video call to/from PC, Video Mail, Video Call Center, Video Conference, Video Surveillance, and Traffic Surveillance, reducing products and travel.

Ericsson Mobile Health delivers remote monitoring of physical parameters such as blood glucose and blood pressure, transmitted wirelessly to health professionals. Certain telemedicine applications could reduce travel for hospital consultations by as much as 50 percent, according to our research.

The opportunities for broadband to de-materialize and streamline our economy are almost unlimited.