Ericsson touts new energy efficiencies for IP edge

Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) today announced a new way to measure energy usage that ties consumption to services delivered. According to this new metric, Ericsson believes its SmartEdge 1200 product delivers the greatest energy efficiency in the IP edge equipment space.

“Typically there were very basic ways of measuring energy consumption like watts per port or watts per gigabit Ethernet,” said Jeff Baher, senior director of product marketing for Ericsson, which acquired the SmartEdge product line when it bought Redback Networks, a brand now being retired. “But there are better ways to quantify energy usage that factor in subscribers and service density.”

Based on its own research and testing done by Iometrix, Ericsson is touting a metric based on the number of subscribers served, and by this measure, Ericsson says the SmartEdge 1200 serves 256,000 subscribers while consuming 3840 watts of electrical power, compared to 6400 watts for Cisco’s equipment to serve a comparable number of subscribers and even higher numbers for Juniper (11,520 watts); Huawei (12,800 watts) and Alcatel-Lucent (18,000 watts).

Ericsson wants service provider customers to view the SmartEdge 1200 as the most energy-efficient choice at the IP edge because of all the functionality it combines into one platform, occupying one rack, Baher said.

“It’s like comparing vehicles – you use miles per gallon to do that,” Baher said. In a straightforward comparison, a hybrid car like a Prius would win the MPG battle over a minivan or a truck, Baher said. “But if you are looking at the cost of transporting eight people from point A to point B, the van would be more cost-effective because you can make one trip,” Baher said. Similarly, the truck can be more cost-effective for hauling cargo, he said.

What Ericsson did to create its metrics was align energy consumption with services provided and revenue generated, Baher said. “The advantage we think we have at the edge is in form factor and subscriber density,” he said.

“When you say Ethernet, people ask, ‘How cheap and how many ports, how dense?’ The reality is that platforms in metro Ethernet networks are not industry-leading in terms of Ethernet density. It’s also about the smarts that are driving Ethernet and how you are able to slice the capacity in terms of virtual leased lines to create circuits to sell to business customers. That speaks to the control plane, software, underlying ASICs and the ability to virtualize the bandwidth and make it available in increments you can sell.”