To reduce its power consumption and energy costs, as well as shrink its carbon footprint, Verizon has established its own energy-consumption standards and an associated measurement process for new telecom-related equipment. The standards will be applied to certain broadband, video, data centre, network and customer-premises equipment purchased after January 1, 2009. The target provided to the manufacturers of such equipment is 20% greater efficiency than today’s gear.

“We
want to reduce our energy usage and do our part to improve the
environment,” said Mark Wegleitner, senior vice president, corporate
network and technology with Verizon. “We’re proud to be leading the
industry with this initial, important step, and invite others to use
these standards so the cumulative effect is increased.”



He
explained that this is not unlike consumers buying appliances according
to Energy Star efficiency levels. In fact, Wegleitner cites the lack of
similar standardized levels for the equipment his company buys as
prompting Verizon to set up its own standards and measurement process.



Verizon
established a series of Telecommunications Equipment Energy Efficiency
Ratings based on formulas that test the consumption of equipment under
various operating conditions and settings. Test data is entered into
formulas developed for each type of equipment, which indicates whether
they achieve the target rating.



Equipment
to be tested and rated includes optical and video transport systems,
switches and routers, DSLAM high-speed Internet equipment and optical
line termination gear, as well as switching power systems, data centre
servers and power adapters that operate customer equipment.