Call for metering of mobile network base stations

Reduction of power consumption is essential for mobile network operators to reach net zero emission targets, says the Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance (NGMN) industry alliance.

In a new white paper entitled ‘Metering for sustainable networks’, the NGMN states that an accurate metering system is a prerequisite to ensure that energy consumption can be properly monitored, measured and optimised.

It also will allow all the players involved in mobile network deployment and operation, i.e. the network operators and tower companies, to develop precise optimisation processes, predict maintenance and control the network remotely, thereby reducing manual interventions, with both contributing to a reduction in operating expenses.

The Alliance points out that the number of mobile network operators committing to net zero emission targets by 2050 or earlier has significantly increased in the past couple of years.

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To optimise their energy consumption, it is important to have a detailed understanding of where and when energy is consumed and which factors are influencing this consumption.

The Alliance proposes that unified metering and data collection architecture should be established between the network operators and network equipment suppliers including manufacturers and vendors.

This will enable deployment with low effort and the development of options to manage the energy consumption of the networks.

The metering should provide the measurement of energy consumption of both the different parts of the network, e.g. the mobile access, fixed access, core, transport and data centre, as well as of all the equipment including base station equipment, cooling systems, aggregation, backbone, etc.

As such all equipment should be metering enabled, with the most important parameters for energy saving being the energy consumption, current and voltage, while other relevant parameters include temperature and humidity.

“We, like the Alliance, in particular ask equipment manufacturers to share architectures and communication protocols to improve the measurements of the energy consumption in base stations, being the most energy-consuming part of mobile networks,” says Laurent Leboucher, SVP Orange Innovation Networks, Orange and Member of the NGMN Board.

“Our request also applies to all other equipment in the network. Accurate metering solutions are absolutely essential to operators – to make progress on energy efficiency, measuring is essential. This will contribute to our net-zero targets and also to reducing networks operational expenses.”

The white paper forms part of the NGMN’s Green Future Networks series.

In the paper, the Alliance also recommends further work on mobile technology interfaces and specifications to standardise parameters and other aspects of energy measurement and monitoring of networks to accelerate the implementation of the metering use cases.