Most of us want to be good stewards of the earth. We aim to minimize the negative impact on our water, air and land. We hope to provide a healthy environment for future generations.
However, often we do not do enough to bridge the gap between our intentions and actions.
For example, Edmunds.com confirmed that in 2010, SUVs and trucks continued to outsell more fuel-efficient hybrid and compact cars. To accommodate this growth, America continues to build bigger roads, interstates, and bridges.
The SUVs of the telecom industry
We can see similar non-green dynamics in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry. Copper-based LANs continue to prevail, even though the technology struggles to keep pace with bandwidth demands. The accepted solution has been to upgrade from CAT3 to CAT5 to CAT6 while also refreshing stacks of Ethernet switches. But these power-hungry Ethernet switches have a 100-meter distance limitation. So, we must stack and mesh switches to meet bandwidth, quality of service and resiliency requirements.
This is not a sustainable approach to evolving ICT network demands and achieving green goals.
Copper-based LANs have become the SUVs of ICT, when Optical LAN--the hybrid or compact car version of network technology--is available and better for the environment. I am very pleased to say we can effect positive change toward the environment in ICT. Optical LAN infrastructure and passive optical network (PON)technologies can help achieve their cost savings goals while bettering the environment.
Good for the environment, good for the budget
Optical LAN provides fiber connections directly to LAN users. It replaces traditional active equipment, and copper-based CATx wiring, with passive PON equipment and near future-proof single mode fiber.
Fiber-based LAN infrastructures help operators achieve many goals. They offer longer life, smaller, lighter, stronger, tighter bend radius, higher bandwidth, longer reach, better electromagnetic interference (EMI) and faster installation.
Similar to hybrid and compact cars, Optical LANs promise the industry's best environmental benefits:
- 50+ year life-expectancy and less material overall in cradle-to-grave lifecycle analysis
- Fewer combustibles and plastics mean lower building fire load and lower smoke impact
- Single-mode fiber consumes 100- to 200-times less national resources compared to copper
- Positive impact on LEED building-certification levels
Not only is Optical LAN good for the environment, it is also good for the budget. The cost of the material and labor for Optical LAN structured cabling is typically 50% of the cost of CATx cabling infrastructure.
Changes in telecom can clean up our air
People can positively affect the environment by making changes to their telecom infrastructure. For example, a 2,000-user Optical LAN campus can save 28 kilowatts per hour. Applying KWH to CO2 conversion, that campus is saving 165 tons per year (that's about as much as eleven 15mpg vehicles produce each year).
What if 10,000 buildings across the country used Optical LAN? If each building had just 12,000 Ethernet end-points, together they would save 1.65 million tons of CO2. That's the equivalent of kicking 110,000 SUVs off the roads.
That's a lot more clean air for our future.
