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Green potential for mobile broadband

In moving to mobile broadband, telecom operators are positioned to meet the increasing demand for environmental sustainability.

February 4, 2009

With expanding penetration and increasing speeds, mobile broadband can actually contribute to lower carbon emissions. Johan Wibergh, head of Business Unit Networks, says that Ericsson is committed to improving energy efficiency in mobile networks and enabling IP-based services and applications that reduce the need for travel.  

Mobile broadband will continue to grow as a result of the demand for applications such as data-sharing, video streaming and online collaboration, Wibergh says. By 2013, Ericsson forecasts that there will be 3 billion broadband subscribers worldwide and that 80 percent of them will access the internet via a mobile connection.

Operators are in the best position to meet the demand for mobile broadband, wherever users are, he says. “They have the infrastructure in place. And the products that we've been delivering for the past few years are very much upgradeable to higher speeds and higher capacities.

“If you take our mobile infrastructure, for instance, all the GSM and 3G base stations that we have delivered can be upgraded to the latest technology, 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE).”

The United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals include reducing carbon emissions by 50 percent worldwide over the next 40 years. Wibergh says that this goal is attainable through massive investments in technology. “Communications will play a vital role in making that happen.”

The high speeds available with mobile broadband enable virtual meetings via video-conferencing applications that are becoming increasingly sophisticated. A technique developed at Stockholm’s Royal Institute of Technology enables videoconference participants to make direct eye contact with each other. The technology has been piloted in psychiatric therapy sessions, with promising results indicating that sensitive meetings can be conducted successfully via video.

“Video conferencing is being used not only in a business context, but for delivering remote health care, education and social services,” Wibergh says. “These technologies have enormous potential for a variety of professionals who perform fieldwork, or who work from home.”

Mobile broadband is also enabling e-commerce, which can reduce the need for travel as well as help reduce the energy required to maintain brick-and-mortar retail facilities.

For the consumer, everything from refrigerators to household-heating systems will be broadband-enabled in the near future, allowing remote monitoring to maximize energy efficiency.

Ericsson estimates that carbon emissions can be cut by up to 20 percent through the use of information and communications technologies (ICT) in such areas as commerce, energy, transport, facilities management and production.

Getting mobile broadband to all corners of the world is a high priority for Ericsson, Wibergh says. “Our vision is to have access to the internet from any place in the world. To make this happen, we are driving innovation and standardization to make sure that mobile networks provide greater speeds and that they work well together, with minimum impact on the environment.”

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