Fiber for a greener future (SUDEFIB) Committee

Joannes De Wilde FTTH Council Europe

Amsterdam CUD 23 september 2008

Sustainable Development and FTTH

Broadband usage is an opportunity for sustainable development

FTTH is maximizing the offer for new services w/ minimum materials

& maintenance

How FTTH participate to sustainable development taking into account

networks sourcing, implementation, consumption, recycling?

Our mission: Quantify the Sustainable Development Impact of FTTH

solutions looking at various European cases

Tele-presence: A good Busi…Home

More•

Teleworking•

Video-conference•

Medicine, healthcare•

Governance•

Education•

P2P, exchanges•

Video surveillance, etc.

FTTH is

creating

a new environment

•

Business•

Personal

•

Family benefits

•

Societal•

Local enhancement

Less• Life constraints & stress• Inefficiencies of services• Intense operations• Infrastructures/transport• Environmental changes• Collective costs

Study Introduction

•

Information society network are providing solutions for heavy energy consumptions sectors, such as transport and building sectors

•

FTTH networks bring environmental benefits in many fields. The present study focuses specifically on the areas of teleworking

and telemedicine

•

FFTH solutions provide higher bandwidth than all other

broadband solutions. The project compares the environmental impact of a network to these associated benefits

•

The use of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to illustrate this comparison was made by PricewaterhouseCoopers to generate the necessary quantitative data This work has been done according to ISO 14040 standard

•

Data sources and modeling were mainly provided by the FTTH Council SUDEFIB (Sustainable Development Fiber) CommitteeData are weighted as European average

•

FTTH network deployment–

3 scenarios were considered for the calculation: urban dense, urban wide and rural areas.

–

4 types of deployment techniques are considered (existing ducts or urban sewage, traditional trench, micro-trench, aerial hanging)

–

The life span of the FTTH passive infrastructures was chosen as 50 years

•

Selected benefits–

Teleworking, telemedicine and home assistance are assessed–

Telemedicine looked up three cases: teledialysis, telemedical

meetings and medical imaging transfer

–

From the current trends (2010-2011) in

FTTH networks use, we have chosen the following percentage-

10% of the working population could telework

3 days per week-

20% of the population 75 years old and over could benefit from home assistance

Hypothesis

Ready-mixed concrete

Road bitumen

Polyethylene (HDPE)

Light fuel oil

(Blowing machine consumption)

Diesel oil

(Civil works engine consumption )

Outdoor optical fiber cable

130 m2

1605 L

1000 m

3 MJ63 m3

116 kg

1 km of micro-trench

Example of a technique modelling

http://www.ecobilan.com

Analysis of results & main outcomes

•

As a main quantitative finding, the environmental impact of the deployment of a typical FTTH network will be positive in less than 10 years

considering only the three selected services

•

The use of the network (power consumption) represents only 6% of

the total impact

•

Additional either existing or developing applications will further emphasize these results

•

Beyond its environmental-friendly aspects, FTTH solutions offer additional social and economical benefits

•

Years (0.0 –

12.0) represents the depreciation of the FTTH Network.

•

"Total impact of fiber network implementation" takes into account full life cycle including production of passive and active equipments, transport, implementation, power consumption and end of life.

•

"Environmental savings" are represented by one of teleworking, home assistance and the three telemedicine case studies.

Depreciation of FFTH network (in years)

0.0

2.0

4.0

6.0

8.0

10.0

12.0

Total Primary Energy

Depletion of abioticresources

Greenhouse effect

Air AcidificationPhoto-oxidantformation

Eutrophication

Human Toxicity

* For a deployment scenario made of 60% in urban dense areas, 30% in urban wide areas and 10% in rural areas

b

•

Regarding the potential greenhouse gas impact, the deployment phase is predominant and represents approximately 80% of the total impact

of FTTH network

•

In particular, the key impacting parameter over the carbon emissions is the length of new ducts (meters) per home passed

Relative contributions of the different FFTH network deployment phases to climate change potential impacts

6. End of life1%

5. Network power

consumption 6%

1. Cable and passive

equipment production

7%

2. Active equipements production

8%

3. Transport0%

4. Passive fiber network

deployment78%

Normation

•

If we consider only the projection of FTTH number of user according to IDATE (20 millions for 2015)

for the first 10 years of network implementation, greenhouse gas

emission savings per user are of 250 kg approximately. This is equivalent

to a car travelling 1 700 kilometers. For the next 10 years ....

•

Consequently, sustainability of FTTH solutions will be demonstrated if:–

user experience is growing–

bottlenecks such as network access are removed

•

The present study considers an overall approach of FTTH alternative networks and associated services. In particular, it considers PON and Point to Point configurations using aggregated data

Other contributions

FTTH can contribute to other fields not assessed in the present study (see also DG JRC report "The future impact of ICTs

on environmental sustainability")

•

Energy demand•

Supply chain management•

E-commerce•

Tele-meetings•

Dematerialized products and services•

Intelligent transport systems•

Facility management•

Production progress management•

Improve service and product utilization

Conclusion

•

This study is based on European inputs. An eco-design approach can be adopted on a case by case basis. The scope can be extended to other geographical contexts (US and Asia through local FTTH Councils work) or to specific local deployments

•

FTTH network solutions represent a responsible investment for:–

Operators–

Public bodies–

Shareholders–

Utilities

•

FTTH networks provide decisive leverage to policy makers

“FTTH networks enable society changes for a sustainable future”…just imagine!