Ericsson's Redback aims for better green metrics

Environmental sustainability continues to be a top of mind issue in the telecom industry, with carriers touting their own green strategies and their vendors adjusting to the new reality by reducing the power consumption and carbon footprint of their gear. Ericsson's Redback Networks is proposing new energy-usage metrics for edge routers to help the vendor community reach green goals for different areas of the network.

Ericsson is aiming to have its proposals for two new metrics--measurement of Watts per subscriber at the edge of the IP network, and Watts per circuit in the metro network--reviewed by carrier standards body the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions. Other vendors already are pursuing their own ideas for new energy metrics and ratings systems, so it will be interesting to see if the area of sustainability metrics becomes a new battlefield in the telecom standards sectors.

Separately, Pike Research just put out a report saying that "green" telecom equipment could account for 46 percent of all telecom network capex by 2013, so it's no surprise that vendors are trying to stake their claims as both sales leaders and thought leaders.

For more:
- Light Reading has this story [1]
- Here's the Pike Research press release [2]

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Telcos have aggressively promoted their own sustainability plans [4]