Energy efficiency solutions for the mobile network evolution towards 5G: an operator perspective

Yrjölä

Ahokangas

et al. 2021

Wireless Pers Commun

Sustainability has entered all aspects of life, calling for an active approach from the wireless and mobile communications community to help in solving fundamental challenges facing societies. Societal, economic, and environmental aspects of sustainability have become increasingly important design criteria in developing future technologies, along with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) framework that sets specific goals and targets to be achieved by 2030. The role of mobile communications is important in supporting nations and organizations in meeting the UN SDGs in a timely manner, but the whole ICT sector itself, with its critical role as the backbone of society, can create a significant sustainability burden. Research on the next-generation mobile communication networks (6G) has started, aiming at first deployments in 2030, in a new era where sustainability defines its development. Therefore, sustainability, especially through the UN SDGs, and the future 6G wireless networks, cannot be treated in isolation, but a clear connection between them is urgently needed. This paper extends from traditional green communications and energy efficiency considerations in wireless communications to establishing a close connection between 6G and the triple bottom line of economic sustainability, societal sustainability, and environmental sustainability. The paper outlines open research challenges for sustainable 6G development and provides a set of research questions encouraging especially the researchers and engineers in the wireless and mobile communications community to address to realize a sustainable future.

Section: Sustainable Development and Mobile Communicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

6G and the UN SDGs: Where is the Connection?

Yrjölä

Ahokangas

et al. 2021

Wireless Pers Commun

“…The role of MNOs is crucial in the sustainability of mobile communications and an MNO perspective on 5G is presented in [28], where energy consumption of the radio access network is evaluated in different load conditions. Another MNO view is given in [29] on the environmental and economic feasibility of MNOs becoming carbon neutral, combining two of the bottom lines.…”

Section: Sustainable Development Through the Un Sdg Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainability and Spectrum Management in the 6G ERA

2021 ITU Kaleidoscope: Connecting Physical and Virtual Worlds (ITU K)

2021

The goal of sustainability and the required sustainable development to reach this goal call for a significant renewal of operations to solve fundamental challenges facing societies. The role of ICT and wireless communications is critical in realizing the twin transition of green and digital. The wireless and mobile communications community has taken sustainability as the key goal driving the whole R&D of the next generation of mobile communication networks (6G) aiming at deployment in 2030s. Understanding the triple bottom line of economic, social and environmental sustainability together with the concrete United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) with specific targets and indicators are fundamental for 6G R&D but their linkages are not yet clear. This paper investigates sustainability and sustainable development in the context of 6G. A special focus is on the management of the fundamental natural resource for wireless communications, namely the radio spectrum whose management keeps getting ever more complex. The paper highlights the role of new sharing-based spectrum governance models, to rapidly respond to the needs of the changing world towards a sustainable future.

“…[5]. Energy efficiency has been the major design criteria, resulting in active research on green communications in the past decades [6][7][8][9]. Energy efficiency improvements and reductions in energy consumption are important factors in introducing environmental sustainability.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Research Issues for Sustainable Wireless Networks: A Stakeholder Approach

2022 20th International Symposium on Modeling and Optimization in Mobile, Ad Hoc, and Wireless Networks (WiOpt)

2022

Sustainability and sustainable development are topics that are increasingly addressed in the ICT sector including wireless networks. Yet, their interpretations vary a great deal depending on the person without a commonly agreed approach. This paper presents an overview of sustainability and sustainable development in the context of ICTs and wireless networks highlighting the urgency of introducing sustainability principles at all levels and stages of ICT technology development. The paper presents a way forward to adopt sustainability principles into future technology design considering the triple bottom line of economic, social and environmental sustainability perspectives. A change in mindset is urgently needed and all stakeholders need to act in their own capacity as well as collaboratively to make the wireless networks and their use truly sustainable without green-washing. New metrics need to be defined and measured to respond to growing concerns as today's metrics, such as total consumed mobile data are far from sustainable. Time to act is now as the design criteria for the future sustainable 6G are defined in the next years.