The emission of CO2 is widely held to be the dominant cause of global warming and the resulting environmental degradation. Moreover, the communications industry is guilty of leaving one of the largest carbon footprints, a fact which has prompted supply chain stakeholders to seek proactive ways to save energy and reduce the industry' s eco impact. India is credited with leading the drive to promote a low carbon economy and its leading mobile operator, Reliance, is stepping up its efforts to open the door to green communications.
As the world' s second most populous country with approximately 1,13 billion inhabitants, India has enjoyed prosperous economic growth and social development. Like other developing countries, though, it is facing enormous environmental problems. Its thermal power industry, for instance, is a huge generator of carbon. From 1992 to 2002, the atmospheric concentrations of CO2 in India jumped from 280 ppm to 390 ppm due to a CO2 emission increase of 57%. India is becoming warmer, and its temperature rises are rapidly catalyzing soil degradation, water pollution, and flooding. Energy conservation and emission reductions are urgently required to mitigate further environmental destruction, and to guard against catastrophes such as the 2008 Bihar floods, which displaced around 3 million people.
To fulfill its social responsibility and promote its eco-agenda, Reliance constructed its green radio access network (RAN) using eco-friendly GSM solutions to provide economically and environmentally sustainable services for 55 million mobile subscribers across 20,000 towns and 450,000 villages.
CDMA/GSM co-location for emission reductions
India' s vast territory is experiencing the early phase of urbanization, and this is of course accompanied by a surge in communications needs. A new mobile network requires a large number of outdoor equipment rooms to ensure wide coverage. However, research reveals that producing materials for equipment room construction such as cement and tiles creates 65% of the total CO2 emissions in one site, as illustrated in Fig. 1. Although no CO2 is generated when these materials are used, the large amount of energy required forms a hidden source of energy consumption.
Cutting these invisible CO2 emissions effectively necessitates a reduction in the number of new sites and equipment rooms, which can be achieved by reusing old equipment rooms. However, traditional GSM equipment features low integration and occupies large space. At Reliance' s existing CDMA sites, the available space in most equipment rooms was insufficient to house traditional GSM equipment, which in turn requires new sites. However, a project that involves tens of thousands of equipment rooms would have an obvious and extremely detrimental impact on the environment.
Reliance' s eco-commitment led it to select Huawei' s new generation, highly integrated green GSM BTS after comparison with other vendor' s solutions. Outshining the competition with its remarkably low carbon emissions and construction costs, Huawei' s future-oriented BTS facilitates an S4/4/4 site by using single cabinet that occupies less than half a square meter. The lightness of the BTS negates the need for large mounting facilities and reduces the number of construction personnel, and its compact dimensions reserve space for future expansion that can support 18 GSM/UMTS carriers.
In large cities such as Bombay and Delhi, Reliance has significantly curtailed its construction costs by co-positioning its GSM and CDMA networks to share auxiliary devices such as antennas, feeders, and power supplies. Hardware expansion can be realized through software without expanding the site, which further reduces invisible CO2 emissions. As the basis for Reliance' s green RAN, the Huawei GSM BTS effectively reduces energy consumption and emissions, saves space, and is highly adaptable. These advantages have prompted Reliance to consider sharing its site resources with other operators so as to not only minimize its own carbon footprint, but also that of other operators.
Electricity management for energy conservation
India has faced power shortages and over-priced electricity for years, which is exacerbated by rising gas and coal prices. Not only have electricity prices soared, but old equipment reduces the efficiency of generating and using electricity, with the transmission loss rate in New Delhi, for example, reaching 50%. Thus, power savings through efficient BTSs not only reduce CO2 emissions, but also minimize the exorbitant energy-based OPEX incurred by operators.
The green Huawei GSM BTS selected by Reliance features an intelligent electricity manager, which employs Huawei' s power amplification (PA) technology to enhance efficiency by 50% and cut BTS power consumption by over 60%, while giving the same coverage. Its intelligent power control technology can either shut down idle carrier modules or disable part of a given carrier' s time slots to reduce transmission energy when traffic is low. In India, the average traffic volume from 8:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. is equal to just a tenth of daytime peak hour traffic. By using the above technologies, most BTSs can cut power consumption by a third during non-peak times and still maintain high QoS.
Smooth evolution to a green 3G network
Reliance' s 2G services have been enormously successful, and have imbued the company with the confidence to develop 3G services. Reliance expects its 3G network to form an energy-saving platform that integrates multiple data services, including multi-media entertainment and remote medical care, monitoring, and education.
Huawei' s future-oriented GSM solution can smoothly upgrade Reliance' s GSM network to UMTS. The space reserved by the Huawei GSM BTS can house Huawei' s 3G UMTS RF module and baseband processing unit without changing the BTS, and without necessitating large scale, complex upgrades. A simple upgrade can support UMTS S2/2/2, and one cabinet can operate 2G and 3G networks in parallel.
The GSMA CEO, Rob Conway, pointed out that operators should benefit more people while minimizing their own environmental impact. With the dedicated support of Huawei, Reliance has constructed a high-quality green RAN, which helps Indian people exchange information anytime and anywhere. It saves resources, reduces the communications carbon footprint, and protects the environment. The door to green communications is now open, and Reliance' s green RAN marks a milestone in the development of mobile communications.
Fig. 1 Invisible CO2 emission for one site
