Sustainability in telecommunications

Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs and University of Melbourne in partnership with the Victorian Government officially launched the Centre for Energy-Efficient Telecommunications (CEET) at the University of Melbourne on 28 March 2011.

CEET will be devoted to innovation in energy-efficient networks and technologies with the ultimate goal of reducing the impact of telecommunications on the environment. The facility will have a staff of researchers and technology experts that will build to a team of 22 over the next three years.

In achieving its goals, CEET will take advantage of Bell Labs’ experience in generating technologies and guiding collaborative research projects and the University of Melbourne’s research in telecommunications network infrastructure. Bell Labs also brings a global research perspective and a wealth of expertise in energy-efficiency research, especially in the wireless area, that complements that of CEET.

“Today, telecommunications networks in Australia use about 1% of our energy supply, and with increasing demands for bandwidth, this is expected to grow dramatically - unless we find ways to make our networks more efficient,” said Rod Tucker, University of Melbourne Laureate Professor.

The centre has announced nine new projects in the fields of modelling, transmission and fundamental technology, as part of its focus on driving energy efficiency. The projects include:

• Cloud Computing, Content Distribution and Information Logistics
• Energy Efficiency of Next Generation Networks
• Internet Services Energy Star Rating
• Energy Efficiency of Future Modulation Format
• Low energy Point-to Point Access Network
• Analog to Digital Converters
• Energy Efficient Wireless Networks
• Fundamental Limits of Switching and Information Transfer
• Router Power Measurement