How to save network-based energy consumption?
© 2011 EPFL
Insomnia in the access: or how to curb access network related energy consumption.
Powering the Internet consumes vast amounts of energy, and the discrepancy in trends between the ever-increasing Internet traffic and the slower increase of hardware energy efficiency threatens the Internet's growth. Small, but numerous access devices (modems, home gateways, and DSLAM multiplexers) are responsible for the predominant fraction of the total wired network-based energy consumption. Prof. Dejan Kostic and Dr. Marco Canini (NSL - Networked Systems Laboratory) completed a project in which they, in collaboration with Telefonica Research, take an in-depth look at the problem of greening access networks, identify three root problems, and propose practical solutions for their user- and ISP-parts. They introduce Broadband Hitch-Hiking (BH2), which takes advantage of the overlap of wireless networks to aggregate user traffic in as few gateways as possible. On the ISP side, they propose introducing simple inexpensive switches at the distribution frame for batching active lines to a subset of DSLAM cards letting the remaining ones sleep. Overall, their results show that it is possible to save 66% of access network energy. If applied worldwide, this translates to saving 33 TWh per year (annual output of three nuclear power plants). Telefonica plans to commercialize this technology.