Constant access to wireless networks has an environmental cost2013-08-21 09:59 by DanielaTags: Wireless
In days when we are able to connect to the Internet from practically anywhere in the world, and people should make a profit on this, it turns out that this convenience could cause environmental harms. And Wireless networks and devices, instead of driving sustainable development, are turning into energy-consuming monsters. A recent research from The Centre for Energy-Efficient Telecommunications (CEET) in Melbourne shows that the CO2 burden of building and maintaining mobile networks has been overlooked in wireless cloud calculations, especially the antennas and wireless routers that provide connections to smartphones and tablets. CEET estimates that from 2012 to 2015 wireless cloud computing will add 24 megatonnes of carbon, taking the sector's total emissions up to 30 megatonnes, the equivalent of putting around 4.9m new cars on the road. What CEET has done is to put a quantification on the carbon required to gain 24/7 access to the wireless cloud, whether or not it is actually used. But more importantly the report focuses attention on the poverty of offsets as a solution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, arguing that we should ultimately be seeking net downward changes in carbon footprints. So, it turns out that despite the massive growth in use of smartphones and tablets, the reality is that they – and the antennas connecting them to the networks – still spend a lot of time on standby and costing carbon, rather than in active use and saving carbon. Read more -here-
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