Ericsson touts new energy efficiencies for IP edge

The SmartEdge 1200 is optimized to support the greatest number of customers with the smallest energy consumption footprint because of integrated functions, Baher said, which enable more granular slicing and dicing of bandwidth.

“Subscriber management, IP/MPLS routing and Ethernet aggregation – we can do all in one platform,” Baher said.

This latest initiative is part of Ericsson’s overall effort to become a greener equipment provider, including a 2008 commitment to implement up to a 40% reduction in carbon emissions per subscriber across its product portfolio within five years. As IP networks are adopted by wireless service providers, Baher said, Ericsson is pushing the industry as well to adopt new metrics for measuring power consumption instead of looking at the old versions of watts per GE or watts per port of older systems, Baher said.

As part of its efforts, Ericsson is working with ATIS, which develops the Telecommunications Energy Efficiency Ratio (TEER) values, to determine if there is a better way to do that, Baher said. Ericsson also is working with the Metro Ethernet Forum “to find a way to get this approach into the vernacular,” Baher said. While it doesn’t have to be a standard, there needs to be agreement on how energy consumption is best measured, he said, so there is a viable way for network operators to compare products when buying. “We have done the TEER calculations that are in line with the results we got from Iometrix,” Baher said. “We want to move beyond intellectual property with Ericsson.”