Verizon fights power inefficiency as industry standard inches along

Remember the other day when we were bemoaning--er, noting--how telecom firms other than BT were not making much of an effort to promote [1] "green" strategies and general conservation efforts? Well, first a Canadian ISP wrote in to tell us about how it is using a hydrogen fuel cell for redundant power (see comment posted to the story we linked to in the previous sentence). Now, Verizon Communications, which I believe has done some work with alternative energy sources already, is announcing a new power conservation standard that it expects equipment vendors to begin meeting Jan. 1 for new gear they attempt to sell into Verizon after that date.

Verizon's goal with its new Telecommunications Equipment Energy Efficiency Ratings is to see network equipment power consumption reduced by 20 percent, at least 5 percent to 10 percent more than some gear sellers told Verizon they were capable of last year, but Verizon says it wanted to "push them a little." The mega-telco certainly is in a position to do so.

Verizon also says it is contributing to an evolving industry standard in the works from the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions, but that the general industry movement is happening too slowly, and it wanted to get something in place earlier. It's good to see a few service providers making strides, but green goals certainly need to increase, and more carriers and vendors need to start buying in and being more aggressive about agreeing on standards.

For more:
- see this story [2] at Telephony

Related articles:
BT just introduced a carbon emission reduction model BT report [1]
BT last year launched a sustainability service BT report [3]
Power of Ethernet also gets points for being green PoE report [4]