Bell Labs Says Networks Can Be 1000 Times More Energy Efficient

judgecorp writes "Bell Labs believes that data networks can be more efficient and has launched a consortium which aims to develop technology that uses only a thousandth of current network energy requirements by 2015. The Green Touch initiative is going to focus in particular on wireless, seeking to reduce wasted energy in signal broadcasts. Cynics might say Alcatel-Lucent is using its research division to distract attention from its troubles — the Financial Times described it as 'a poster child for much that is wrong in the telecoms equipment industry' — but Bell Labs still commands respect and support, and the goal it has set is an interesting one."

Comments

1000 times less energy

[TheKidWho]

And how much lower is the bandwidth going to be?

Considering the push towards 4g and faster...

Re:1000 times less energy

[davester666]

if you only use their patented technology!

Re:1000 times less energy

[sycodon]

Yeah, how about use the same energy and make it 1000 times faster.

Re:1000 times less energy

[inKubus]

And why does "Bell Labs" still command respect and support. In the 70's they had UNLIMITED FUNDING (Ma Bell) and so naturally they had most of the best minds in telecom and computers; nowadays they're just a little research shop. I don't understand why Microsoft Research gets such a bad rap either, since they are as close to the old Bell Labs that Unix came out of as anyone around. Unix was "for" switches. Arguably the real advances in Unix happened when it magically evolved at Berkeley (in academia). Google has a lot of brilliant staffers but they just don't seem that organized, do they? Anyway, there is no "Bell Labs" right now, and they don't command respect and support. There are a couple of dudes there that DO, but as an entity, Bell Labs is a bug. Prediction, Cisco purchases Acatel-Lucent in the next 5 years.

Re:1000 times less energy

[gtall]

Bell Labs was a lot more than software. And unless you actually work for Google, I very much doubt your comment on them being unorganized is an informed comment.

One does wonder.

[LWATCDR]

Just how much power is being used for Cell transmissions? What about Wifi?
Think about it. Our appliances are getting more efficient all the time but how much power are our gadgets sucking up.
WiFi, Game Consoles, DVD players, Home networks, Home NAS servers, cable boxes, and TVs.
Way back when when you went to bed you turned off our TV and it was actually off.

Re:One does wonder.

[Rogerborg]

You know what else? Those kids these days, they play their music so damn loud. How much power is that using?

Re:One does wonder.

[Monkeedude1212]

I highly recommend this to everyone who has to pay an electricity bill: Unplug your appliances.

I have saved over 60% of my electrical bill by following the simple process of unplugging everything when its not in use. The only 3 things that remains plugged in are the Fridge, Stove, and the alarm clock. The Television, sound system, game consoles, all that is on a power bar so its easy to just unplug the power bar. The laptop, computer, microwave, toaster, all that stuff can be left unplugged when I'm not using them. I even do it for the washer and dryer. It is only inconvencing yourself like 3 seconds max, and after a while you get used to it.

I heard someone once say that your electronic devices still use 80% of their power consumption if plugged in, even while not in use. I think that number might be bogus, but I do believe that they still use power, even when not used.

Point is, you can save alot of money by unplugging.

Re:One does wonder.

[volsung]

For $26, you can measure the power of each device on and off and figure out who the actual power hogs are:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882715001

Then at least you'll save wear-and-tear on your plugs for devices that are really off when turned off. (Like your washer and dryer, for example. I would be surprised if they draw power when off.)

Re:One does wonder.

[ScentCone]

toaster

Are you using some sort of programmable, logic-controlled toaster? I've never seen one that wasn't electro-mechanical. I highly doubt that your toaster, your clothes dryer, or your washing machine use a single watt when you're not actually running them.

Also: there are power strips/supplies with switches on them, so that you don't have to fuss over the wear and tear of actually unplugging things.

Re:One does wonder.

[LWATCDR]

True but how much power do all the cell towers use? I am not anti tech but the explosion of tech we have has got to be running up our power bills.
I bet the my home as a child probably used about the same amount of power as my home does today.
I fear our gadgets have wiped out our gains in efficiency and insulation.

Re:One does wonder.

[LWATCDR]

How much? Really people get bent over SUVs but how many of those Prius owners have two or more big HDTVs, multiple game consoles, routers, PCs, DVRs, Home NAS servers, and goodness knows what else sucking down watts 24/7 often doing nothing at all?

Re:One does wonder.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you using some sort of programmable, logic-controlled toaster? I've never seen one that wasn't electro-mechanical. I highly doubt that your toaster, your clothes dryer, or your washing machine use a single watt when you're not actually running them.

Luddite. MY toaster is web 2.0-enabled, runs ajax, ruby-on-rails, jboss, .NET, updates my twitter feed & facebook status (I'm making toast!) and then pushes an rss feed to my iphone when the toast is ready.

Re:One does wonder.

[maxume]

My whole house, with the refrigerator compressor not running, but the television on, uses less than 250 watts. That's 183 kilowatt hours per month, which isn't even 60% of my electric bill.

Re:One does wonder.

[mjwalshe]

and dont forget all the energy used by the digging holes in teh ground extracting copper etc and technicians vans - At one time BT had the largest fleet of comercial vehicles in the UK. Or is Acatel just lying again like when they bid for 21st Century Network contract (eledgedly)

Re:One does wonder.

[the_humeister]

Get yourself a kill a watt meter and find out. My Athlon64 computer with 7200 RPM 500 GB hard drive idles at 40 W. The TV, when off, still pulls 5 W! Now I just plug everything but the computer to a common surge protector and flip it's switch when I'm not watching TV or playing console games

Re:One does wonder.

[Mateo13]

Luddite. MY toaster is web 2.0-enabled, runs ajax, ruby-on-rails, jboss, .NET, updates my twitter feed & facebook status (I'm making toast!) and then pushes an rss feed to my iphone when the toast is ready.

That is epic. If i had mod points I'd mod you up for having the coolest damn toaster on earth.

Re:One does wonder.

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

...but how many of those Prius owners have two or more big HDTVs, multiple game consoles, routers, PCs, DVRs, Home NAS servers, and goodness knows what else sucking down watts 24/7 often doing nothing at all?

Extremes aren't numerous. Generalizations always suck.

Re:One does wonder.

[ScentCone]

That is epic. If i had mod points I'd mod you up for having the coolest damn toaster on earth

No, he's a loser. My toaster is in low earth orbit.

Re:One does wonder.

[ScentCone]

enough comma's for yah?

Not only enough commas, but a bonus! A completely wrong, extra apostrophe! I hereby assign you to an afternoon of reading "Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation" by Lynne Truss.

Re:One does wonder.

[vlm]

True but how much power do all the cell towers use? I am not anti tech but the explosion of tech we have has got to be running up our power bills.

Thats a very amusing question, because a typical setup of 3G equipment draws about 3 KW, yet you're asking how much the tower itself draws, which is of course zero. The equipment draw at a site varies based on auxiliary gear, power level, multiple sites on multiple towers, multiple antennas on multiple gear, etc. Suffice it to say a cell site draws enough power to keep warm in the winter, but its not much compared to a steel mill or a retail establishment. The local power company is generally unimpressed in urban and suburban areas, although in rural areas the towers tend to be in the middle of nowhere resulting in some logistical difficulty, although the power required is no major thing. Local power companies do not install new substations just for a cellsite, for example, on the other hand when colocating in a building they will require a dedicated circuit or two, maybe a tiny subpanel, probably a separately billing power meter.

On the other hand, the FAA requires substantial tower lighting, you're looking at about 1.5 KW of lighting on a big tower. See link to a typical supplier, note that light requires TWO 700 watt bulbs, pretty impressive. Then again a couple hundred watt light bulb is probably what you'd need to light up a couple hundred feet of street, it just makes sense.

So, yes you could reduce the power used by the equipment. From 3KW to 3W to fit the pie in the sky 1:1000 ratio, probably not. Even if you could magically reduce the equipment power draw to zero, by using magic pixie dust and space alien technology, tower lighting requirements alone mean you'll never be able to reduce the total site power draw below about %33 of what is currently used.

http://www.gordtelecom.com/Tower%20Lighting.htm

and thats before you get into discussions about aluminum towers, what with aluminum being "liquid electricity".

Re:One does wonder.

[cheesybagel]

Remember when computers had a real power button on front? A power button you had to actually push with a moderate amount of strength to operate? That button is today in the back of the computer near the power supply.

Now in these days of soft power buttons, nothing is ever really disabled. But rejoice! EPA Energy Star (TM) devices only use a minimum amount of power when in standby mode. Uhuh.

Re:One does wonder.

[MiniMike]

It's called standby power. A recent report found on average 13% of home energy use is used by devices in a low power state (i.e. "off"). Some devices use power to watch for remote control signals, to maintain a clock, or to download info (i.e. tv downloads new schedules). Some of it is just wasted in the transformer. Unplugging is a good option, usually by keeping things plugged into a power bar- easier than unplugging and plugging back into a socket. I also look for Energy Star rated appliances, as I think they'll also use less power when on.

That 80% number may be true for some devices, but it's not accurate overall. I think cable TV (cable, satellite, fiber) converter boxes are the worst, but most other appliances should use less.

Re:One does wonder.

[Montezumaa]

What the hell does it matter? Work requires energy, it is simple science that a 2 year old could understand. No one will ever be able to create an electronics-based device that will ever be able to no energy, hence the damned name. Of course, even if someone were able to do such a feat, then these "green" assholes would never allow such a device to exist. That is if they are not able to get some licensing fee for such a product.

Some of you people believe that "green" is a worthwhile view, but it is total horseshit. If there was no money to be made, then 90% of the people involved in this "green" movement would not be involved. These people would simply move on to the next big money maker. Just look at Al Gore if you are in need of an example.

Do not get me wrong, I am all for saving money and protecting beautiful areas of the world from being demolished and paved over. I enjoy spending time in some of the many beautiful and forest-covered areas in the U.S., but I am not for punishing the working class on the whims of a bunch of rich assholes. If they want to push this ideological shit, then they can subsidize this at 100% for everyone else.

Re:One does wonder.

[MiniMike]

Is it cooler than the CNC Toaster, or even than this toast printer?

Re:One does wonder.

[NotBornYesterday]

Are you using some sort of programmable, logic-controlled toaster?

Sure. Why not?

Re:One does wonder.

[LWATCDR]

How extreme is it for a household to have more than one HDTV? And odds are all of them are more than 32"s
How extreme is it to have at least one and probably two game consoles?
How extreme is it to have a router and or a Home NAS? I see those at the local BestBuy and WalMart everyday.
DVRs?
DVD players?
CableBoxes?
Cellphone chargers, iPod chargers?
How many people turn them off when not in use with a power strip?
Sorry it isn't that extreme of a gadget situation. Take a look at your own surroundings and think about how many devices you have with Phantom loads.
Hey I have a small car and A lot of gadgets. Only one TV. This wasn't meant to damn tech but folks we need to do something about standby power use. It makes little sense to spend a lot of money fixing air leaks in your home while having your HDTV sucking down watt after watt of power for no real reason.

Re:One does wonder.

[LWATCDR]

Well I was talking about a cell site. I would guess that there are a lot more cell sites than steel mills. So in round numbers you are talking about 4.5KW for the tower plus FAA lighting.

Re:One does wonder.

[GNious]

Do you turn off your cellphone when not using it? How about unplugging the celltower?
See, you're not even close to going the full mile yet!

Re:One does wonder.

[LWATCDR]

I am talking mainly about wasted power. The Standby power that your HDTV uses is a good example. Sure a DVR needs to be "on" all the time but if you could power it all down and say use a tiny microcontoller running of say a super cap to deal with the timer and the IR receiver you could save some power. Yes it would take a few miutes to power up after got home from work but you could build in a smart system to know that you tend to turn on the TV at say 6:30 and have the micro move from cold standby to warm standby at say 6:15.
I am not a big fan of "GREEN" as the religion of the day but I really do hate waste and lazy engineering.

Re:One does wonder.

[Creepy]

Not on any of my computers... they all have buttons in front, though to shut them down without, say, shutting down through Windows you need to hold the button several seconds (and Windows and Linux don't really like that much, so better to use shutdown). One of my boxes does have a power supply switch, as well, which is useful because the computer leeches power if it isn't switched off at the power supply (like ethernet).

As for data network efficiency, they could stop using ATM for data packets over fiber, which is only 60% efficient (the rest is header - its optimized for voice traffic) and probably save 25-30% of waste power and increase efficiency right there (TCP/IP, for instance, is something like 88% efficient for a 1500 byte packet). As I recall, CDMA used for cell phones is terribly inefficient for phone traffic, much less data (supposedly 4G networks are going to help). A back-to-front efficiency analysis probably does come to 1000% in some cases.

Re:One does wonder.

[Monkeedude1212]

A cell phone is like a refridgerator (figuratively, not literally). It's sole purpose is to be passively doing its job (recieve incoming calls) all the time. I turn it off when I'm in the movie theatre. Otherwise, I expect it to ring.

I do however, unplug it like I do the rest of my electronics :P

Re:One does wonder.

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Very when only Prius owners have all this.

Re:One does wonder.

[MaWeiTao]

I find that hard to believe. A few months ago I went from appliance to appliance with one of those Kill-a-watt devices measuring electricity consumption over a 24 hour period. Usage was insignificant for devices in standby mode, this included my PS3, television and other electronics. And by insignificant I mean a couple of dollars a year for everything in total and this is at roughly 22 cents per kWh in my area.

Where I found heavy usage was from appliances used on a regular basis. The dryer, water heater (which I want to get replaced for a gas heater), air conditioning and things like that. Even my PC, which I leave on because of internet phone was only something like $60-$120 a year. I don't remember the exact figures; I'd have to consult my spreadsheet.

I've found that if you want to really cut utility costs you have to do a good bit of sacrificing. That means enduring the heat of the summer and not turning on air conditioning, running a dryer once a week, or better yet hanging your clothes out to dry. Certainly turning off lights in an unoccupied room helps, but with CFLs the savings there are minimal as well. Reducing the number of electronics you're running at any time certainly helps.

The only way to cut down on electricity usage is to take some fairly significant steps. The small stuff matters because when everyone is doing it that consumption really adds up, but on an individual basis it's pretty insignificant. I suppose living in a relatively small home helps.

Re:One does wonder.

[Sir_Lewk]

My refridgerator is like the internet. You see, it has these series of tubes...

Re:One does wonder.

[AvitarX]

Don't computers only use a watt or two to sleep?

200+ when booting?

Waking from hibernate would then be worth over 2-hours of sleep (vs waking from sleep), and waking from shutdown even longer.

Re:One does wonder.

[TheRaven64]

I don't think I know anyone who has more than half the stuff on that list. Maybe I just don't hang out with enough consumers...

Re:One does wonder.

[TheRaven64]

Why link to a joke when there's a real toaster that fits that description?

Re:One does wonder.

[LWATCDR]

Not at all. But a lot of GREEN folks are at the same time really into tech and really like to bash people that drive SUVs. I do not own an SUV or even a pickup truck. I really want a pickup truck but frankly only the Ford Ranger is close to what I think of as a small truck and I don't need a big truck. Just point out that waste is everywhere and having a house full of power sucking tech but a small car isn't all that green.
BTW I too have to many gadgets sucking power. I started to buy power strips to power down some of my devices when I am not using then to save power.

Re:One does wonder.

[Twinbee]

I'd rather pester the manufacturers or the government to make sure standyby power is decent. What are we - living in the stone age?

Re:One does wonder.

[barzok]

I've found that if you want to really cut utility costs you have to do a good bit of sacrificing. That means enduring the heat of the summer and not turning on air conditioning, running a dryer once a week, or better yet hanging your clothes out to dry

If you live someplace where hanging your clothes out to dry is reasonable (warm, sunny, little chance of rain), that's really not a "sacrifice" - it's a better way to dry your clothes! Less wear, less shrinkage, and less energy usage.

Maybe a little more work, but is it really so bad to get off the couch for 5 minutes?

Re:One does wonder.

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

So you and SUV owners, unlike GREEN folks, are taking steps to reduce your power consumption?

Re:One does wonder.

[jschen]

Which disqualifies your toaster since it's no longer on earth.

Re:One does wonder.

[mcrbids]

note that light requires TWO 700 watt bulbs, pretty impressive.

So, replace the 700 Watt bulbs with 2 brighter, 60-watt Mercury Vapor lights. MV lights don't like to "blink" so put a rotating shield around them. Voila! Better performance at 1/10 the running cost....

Re:One does wonder.

[operagost]

Way back when when you went to bed you turned off our TV and it was actually off.

That would have been about 1970, as right about the color TV era is when we started installing capacitors to keep the tube precharged and reduce warmup time.

Re:One does wonder.

[LWATCDR]

Just that one should look at yourself before looking down at others. As I said I know I have more work to do saving power. My next project is going to be a resource shed. I am going to build a garden shed that will house cisterns for rainwater collection for my garden and a solar panel to charge my cordless tools. I am not criticizing people that choose to own a prius but those that think that act makes them better than others.

Re:One does wonder.

[operagost]

You really don't want the government dictating this. Really.

Re:One does wonder.

[mwvdlee]

I know zero families that have more than one in each of those categories (except perhaps chargers). In fact, I know zero families that even have one of each of those categories.

Obviously, the dozen or so families I know well enough aren't a typical average; they're mostly above-average income and working in technology related fields.

Nonetheless, I think you are being just a tad extreme. Besides, so I sense a hint of jealousy at the people that can afford a Prius?

Re:One does wonder.

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Okay, so the guys that make an expensive decision to reduce their emissions aren't actually doing anything better than SUV owners because their electric power use, which hasn't yet been established as 'distinct from SUV owners', is unchanged.

My next project is going to be a resource shed. I am going to build a garden shed that will house cisterns for rainwater collection for my garden and a solar panel to charge my cordless tools. I am not criticizing people that choose to own a prius but those that think that act makes them better than others.

You're doing all that, but you're still fouling up the air with a gas guzzler?

No, this isn't an attack. I'm illustrating how your own view applies to you. You're doing exactly what you're complaining about other people doing. Worse, you've invented behaviours for a group of people without the slighest data to back it up. (i.e. the implication that Prius owners burn more electricity with entertainment devices than SUV owners.)

More comically, the logic of what you're saying, mainly because you have no data to back it up, doesn't make any sense. Somebody who wants to reduce how much they spend at the pump isn't looking at their utility bills? Really? Somebody who would buy a Prius to reduce stress on the environment wouldn't have a clue about their power/water/gas use?

You should have just left it at: "There's more you can do that you probably don't know about."

Re:One does wonder.

[mwvdlee]

Okay.

Reality check.

How much better for the environment are all your garden sheds, solar panels, cordless tool batteries and homegrown vegetables going to be?

Oh, and you WERE critizizing Prius-owners. You can admit you were wrong, you can continue critizing Prius-owners, but you can't deny the words you've written.

Re:One does wonder.

[ei4anb]

a NetBSD fanboy?

Re:One does wonder.

[cheesybagel]

Ah! Well that makes sense as an approach to saving communications power. The press release was notoriously devoid of actual technical information and full of corporate speak crapola.

Re:One does wonder.

[LWATCDR]

So since when is a Mazda3 a gas guzzler? "What I drive and car pool with my wife to work in." I was commenting on the snotty attitude that many of the green folks have and the waste of energy in gadgets.

Re:One does wonder.

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

You commented on it by using a comparison that actually justified their snottiness, then you went and did the exact same thing you were complaining about them doing. FAIL.

Re:One does wonder.

[MrPhilby]

Maybe even LED's in the future...

Re:One does wonder.

[MrPhilby]

Shifting zero's and one's around isn't work. Nothing is being "lifted". Information has no mass. The losses in IT are almost totally inefficiencies, and that includes the light from your LCD monitor (see e-ink).

Re:One does wonder.

[adolf]

You mean like LED tower lighting like this thing?

Re:One does wonder.

[adolf]

I think you missed his point.

I believe he was referring to the old-school AT-style PC cases, which either had a large switch on the side of the computer near the back, or a remotely-located power switch (typically on the front). Unlike the front-panel switches these days (which don't actually turn anything all the way off), these things would turn off the 110/220V coming in from the power cord.

The switches typically did require some meaningful force to operate. When you turn off an AT computer, it is REALLY off. Immediately.

Re:One does wonder.

[Montezumaa]

Shifting binary code requires electrical impulses to tell the solid object holding the light particles(i.e. the fucking electricity) what to do. Hmm..electricity...oh yeah, electricity if a form of fucking energy. What do you think electricity is? It is not just the thing that makes your mother's vibrator work.

E-ink? Are you kidding me? How do you think that "e-ink" is going to work in low and no light situation? Will itself into your brain? Even OLEDs will have what, idiots like yourself, will label as "wasted energy". The fact is, if a function is being preformed and the function is preformed successfully, then the energy used is not wasted. It is only wasted when the attempted function is failed(like when you came in 36th in a 35 kid race at school because the first place runner lapped you after finishing).

Can things be made more efficient? Sure. I believe they can, but the efficiency has a bell curve. At some point, the closer you get to zero, you fail to save energy and still product at the same rate. It is like if you were to try and lose weight: You will shed pounds quickly at first, then slowly tapper until you reach the point that no more weight can be lost. You can try to be a stubborn asshole, but you cannot beat Physics, Chemistry, or Biology.

Re:One does wonder.

[TapeCutter]

"Just that one should look at yourself before looking down at others."

Good advise, let me help. Your stereotype of people who drive a Prius seems to be that they stereotype people who drive an SUV.

Re:One does wonder.

[NotBornYesterday]

That's simply awesome.

Speaking of Wireless

[Monkeedude1212]

There was an article a while back about a phone battery that is able to recharge itself by intercepting the various radio / wifi waves in its Antenna to generate a current. (Still in development, still not efficient)

I'm not sure if they mean "Energy Wasted in signal broadcast" means they want to reduce the whole broadcast in every direction as far as you can idea - or if there is some other process they plan on using to reduce the energy usage. In any event, I don't think the issue is with too many radiowaves flying through the air, I think its not harnessing the ones that do.

Re:Speaking of Wireless

[itsme1234]

There was an article a while back about a phone battery that is able to recharge itself by intercepting the various radio / wifi waves in its Antenna to generate a current. (Still in development, still not efficient)

... and if you use that "wireless recharging battery" with a phone (or some other device with wifi) you can both USE your wifi and recharge your battery!

Re:Speaking of Wireless

[CyberDong]

RCA has one at CES.

Consortium?

[quangdog]

On the Green Touch website from the synopsis, I read that one of their goals is: "Nothing less than the reinvention of today’s communications networks". Does this mean that the member organizations of Green Touch will hold the exclusive rights to the manufacture of the technology that they dream up?

And, briefly setting aside the notion that energy consumption of our networks is an actual problem, why do we need to reinvent today's communication networks? What's really wrong with them?

Begin ipv4 vs ipv6 flame war in 3....2...1...

Re:Consortium?

[Monkeedude1212]

OMG IPv6 Is bad cuz it uses more bits so more electricity has to flow through the wire which is not very green!!!!!

Re:Consortium?

[psbrogna]

"Nothing less than the reinvention of today’s communications networks" may just be the Internet Era equivalent of "New & Improved !!" ie. marketing lingo. It might be more recognizable as such if it were in a garish colored star burst on their product packaging. Maybe after it graduates from the "good intentions phase" of their R&D to something more tangible we can discuss how revolutionary it actually is. I know I'll stay tuned. :-D

Re:Consortium?

[XPeter]

IPv6 is obviously superior.

More address space and overhead, with embedded encryption.

Hardware or Software?

[Drethon]

I glanced through the article but didn't see if they are planning on fixing the hardware or the software (or both).

I wonder if bad hardware or bad software leads to the greatest inefficiencies?

Isn't it real easy ?

[bytesex]

If we're using too much power now, that means that we're not getting our bandwidth's worth - right ?

Alcatel OEMs Aruba Networks wireless access points

[FooAtWFU]

Alcatel-Lucent's 802.11 wireless access points and controllers are OEM'd from Aruba Networks. This is interesting and relevant because Aruba also has a big "green island" initiative.

1000 times

[oldhack]

Is that number just pulled out of their ass? Is there a base for it?

Re:1000 times

[Monkeedude1212]

I assume they are using Base 10.

Re:1000 times

[psbrogna]

Hey! It's impolite to ask pointed questions when a company is trying to boost brand reputation (or shareholder morale)!

Re:1000 times

[psbrogna]

I didn't see a radix so I'm assuming decimal.

Re:1000 times

[afidel]

I assume they looked at what we are using today to send a bit and compared it to the theoretical limit and then put in a good engineering guard factor of 10x in. Actually if they are comparing it to some of the power sapping SFP's in use today it's not to hard to imagine, if they are comparing it to SFP+ it's a little harder for me to imagine as they would need to produce a laser capable of reaching 10km using about 10mW, quite a feat.

Re:1000 times

[afidel]

Sorry, make that 1mW.

Re:1000 times

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that number just pulled out of their ass? Is there a base for it?

There's a 93.56% chance that is correct.

Re:1000 times

[Junior J. Junior III]

Is that number just pulled out of their ass? Is there a base for it?

Looks like base-10. Although, it could just as likely be base-2

Re:1000 times

[BESTouff]

I assume they are using Base 10.

Hey, actually maybe they use base 2. They got the hint from the harddrive marketing guys.

Re:1000 times

[mjwalshe]

well that depends on what type of antenea you use :-)

Re:1000 times

[the_humeister]

Actually it could be base-n, where n >= 2.

Re:1000 times

[kohaku]

I assume they are using Base 10.

Hey, actually maybe they use base 2.

That's what he said.

Re:1000 times

[lotho brandybuck]

Yes, but they're very educated asses, with a lot of PhDs, and a noble pedigree and reputation for inventing the transistor, etc, etc.

Re:1000 times

[Ghubi]

8 times more efficient does seem like a more realistic number doesn't it.

Re:1000 times

[Monkeedude1212]

I have read your comment like 5 times today and I couldn't figure out why that would be modded funny.

I -JUST- got it. Very clever.

Speaking of crystal radios

[mangu]

The first radio receivers, about a hundred years ago, needed no batteries, they got all the power they needed from the antenna.

Re:Speaking of crystal radios

[afidel]

And every good science geek made one from his first electronics kit. That's one of the problems with everything going to digital signaling, high barrier of entry on learning the technology.

Re:Speaking of crystal radios

[gyrogeerloose]

The first radio receivers, about a hundred years ago, needed no batteries, they got all the power they needed from the antenna.

That's true, and you can still build one with a few feet of wire, a ten-cent diode and a set of headphones. It will still work, too, although not very well. You must remember that 100 years ago, there wasn't the plethora of transmitters that currently exist so a receiver did not have to be particularly selective. A simple set as described will generally be overwhelmed by a local station and that's all you'll receive.

Oh, yeah--no FM either.

Re:Speaking of crystal radios

[Gramie2]

And the last AM transmitter in my area closed down last year.

Re:Speaking of crystal radios

[Wireless Joe]

I'm absolutely no expert, but weren't many of those stations pumping 50,000 watts (with some short lived experiments with 250-500 kilowatts) through their antennas? So there was no power demands on the receiver side, but a significant demand from the transmitter. Is the more recent lower-power transmission model more efficient?

Re:Speaking of crystal radios

[vlm]

I'm absolutely no expert, but weren't many of those stations pumping 50,000 watts (with some short lived experiments with 250-500 kilowatts) through their antennas?

http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/amq.html

The standard daytime power level for the big ones is 50 KW, medium-ish stations run around 10 KW, and the smallest stations during the night might barely go 100 watts.

Want high power, try old fashioned UHF TV superstations around a megawatt.

Re:Speaking of crystal radios

[ei4anb]

Modern transceivers can work on low power too. Amateur radio QRP (low power) enthusiasts have achieved communication at startingly low power levels: "In the spring of 1994, Bob Moody and Bill Brown, WB8ELK shattered this 10-meter record by successfully using only 0.720 microwatts over a 1500-mile path for over 2 billion miles per watt" quoted from "ARRL's Low Power Communication: The Art and Science of Qrp"

Re:Speaking of crystal radios

[Dalambertian]

Not to mention they still transmit excess power to turn on the little LED that confirms your FM radio station is in stereo.

Re:Speaking of crystal radios

[gyrogeerloose]

That was the perhaps most indecipherable thing ever posted to Slashdot. But it looks like you're right, I was wrong--it is possible to detect FM signals with a crystal radio. I stand corrected.

Oh, and by the way, you're about as big an asshole as the guy on solomonsmusic.net.

Re:Speaking of crystal radios

[gyrogeerloose]

Check some of the links on the post that called me to task for saying that you can't receive FM on a crystal radio. Turns out you can.

Re:Speaking of crystal radios

[mangu]

A simple set as described will generally be overwhelmed by a local station and that's all you'll receive.

It's much more selective in short waves. I grew up during the Cold War and transmissions in 25 meters were staggered due to time zones, long distance short waves only propagate at night.

First was the Moscow Central Radio, then came the BBC from London, and later at night the Voice of America. I got to hear three different versions of every battle in Vietnam.

All in my radio using a galena crystal that I picked from the ground during a tourist visit to a salt mine. Many boys built crystal radios, but how many *mined* the galena themselves?

Re:Speaking of crystal radios

[rantingkitten]

Oh, yeah--no FM either.

Are you sure about this? I have a pair of Sennheiser 280s, and at home, if they're plugged in but I'm not playing any sound through them, they actually pick up Star 94 through the wire, an obnoxious FM station here in Atlanta that, apparently, plays nothing but "Party in the USA" and "Tonight's Gonna Be A Good Night" over and over and over and over which makes it really annoying when I'm trying to work on music production, which involves wearing the headphones without always playing sound. Ugh!

Anyway, that's my observation. I need to find some kind of shielding to put around the cable, because if I have to hear those songs one more time I may have to kill myself.

Re:Speaking of crystal radios

[adolf]

Ugh.

That's got to be frustrating.

It's got little to do with the headphones. They can't do that on their own.

The demodulation is happening inside of whatever device you're using as a headphone amp, or perhaps further back in the audio chain.

All the headphones provide some inductance to a circuit, which then decides that it's an FM radio, perhaps even using the headphone wire as a convenient antenna.

It's a poor design, whatever it is -- it shouldn't do that. You could try replacing it, or supplementing it with a different headphone amp (perhaps even just wired in series with it), but that might be impractical depending on the gear you have/want.

The simplest and cheapest thing to try would be to just give the wire from the Sennheisers a few wraps around a snap-on ferrite bead at the end nearest the amp. It'll probably work fine -- in fact, if I were the gambling type, I'd wager on this curing all of your symptoms.

Re:Speaking of crystal radios

[rantingkitten]

The simplest and cheapest thing to try would be to just give the wire from the Sennheisers a few wraps around a snap-on ferrite bead at the end nearest the amp.

Brilliant, I never thought of that. I just stole two from some test IP phones we have in the office and I'll try it tonight. Thanks for the tip.

Not the facts you're looking for

[Lord Grey]

From TFA:

Scientists addressed the problem over the summer of 2009, and concluded that the energy used in networks could be reduced by a factor of up to 10,000 without breaking fundamental laws such as the Shannon Limit, but it would require a fundamental rethink to achieve a massive reduction, said [Gee Rittenhouse, vice president and head of research at Bell Labs]: "Today's networks are optimised for performance and simplicity".

...

The technology produced would be commercially viable and would naturally replace existing networks, as it will be backwards compatible, [consortium] members assured the audience.

Emphasis mine. There's a lot more crap in there that I didn't bother copying and pasting.

This "announcement" reads a lot like a snake-oil advertisement. This consortium will likely produce only one thing: An efficient mechanism for extracting money from investors (government or otherwise).

Re:Not the facts you're looking for

[gad_zuki!]

>This "announcement" reads a lot like a snake-oil advertisement.

Why is this snake oil? Look at modern CPUs and all their power saving functions like speedstep. They make complete sense and save quite a bit of energy.

Now look at your typical ethernet switch. Each port eats up like 5+ watts. Yes, watts, not mW. So you're looking at quite a bit of power usage here to maintain a network connection for 100mbps or 1gbps and to maintain the spec of 100 meters. Well, most computers rarely need that full bandwidth or need the power to maintain a 100 meter run. The idea with greening the datacenter is to write an ethernet spec that dials down the power as needed, like speedstep.

Another idea is to use the cold winter air to help with cooling as opposed to just running the AC at 100% like you do in summer.

Thats not snake oil, those are good ideas, and considering that we're in the middle of energy crisis (not enough uranium to switch to all nuclear and not enough oil for cheap prices) its probably a good time to start proposing this stuff.

Re:Not the facts you're looking for

[khallow]

and considering that we're in the middle of energy crisis (not enough uranium to switch to all nuclear and not enough oil for cheap prices)

What? We'll have to pay slightly more for energy some point in the near future? Crisis!

Re:Not the facts you're looking for

[gad_zuki!]

Oil is a non-renewable resource and will peak and only become more and more expensive. Considering this is projected to happen in my lifetime I would say, that yes, this is a crisis. Cutting back, sane power settings, and renewables are really the only place to go from here until someone gets fusion going cheaply.

Re:Not the facts you're looking for

[khallow]

Considering this is projected to happen in my lifetime I would say, that yes, this is a crisis. Cutting back, sane power settings, and renewables are really the only place to go from here until someone gets fusion going cheaply.

There's always uranium. Plenty of reserves. It's just nobody is willing to mine them while various countries are dumping on the market.

Re:Not the facts you're looking for

[gad_zuki!]

"Plenty" of a non-renewable resource is still limited and eventually you will be in the same situation with oil. Nuclear is at best a stop gap measure to get off oil and to move to 100% renewables.

Re:Not the facts you're looking for

[khallow]

"Plenty" of a non-renewable resource is still limited and eventually you will be in the same situation with oil.

So what? There's a difference between running out in say, ten years, and running out in a few thousand years.

Re:Not the facts you're looking for

[gad_zuki!]

Wiki:

A prominent use of uranium from mining is as fuel for nuclear power plants. As of 2008, known uranium ore resources which can be mined at about current costs are estimated to be sufficient to produce fuel for about a century, based on current consumption rates.[2]

100 years at current load. All non-renewables will peak. Switching from one peak crisis to another is not a solution. Right now, demand for Uranium exceeds supply by a real margin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_uranium

Re:Not the facts you're looking for

[khallow]

I guess we'll just have to start recycling fuel rods in order to get those few thousand years of power then. Or mine uranium that doesn't doesn't currently show up as proven reserves.

Loss of Efficiency?

[ragefan]

Unfortunately, any energy efficiency gains were immediately wiped out upon launching a consortium "which aims to develop technology". I'm guessing this will be mired in various committees and be over-engineered to the point their design for networks will use twice the energy now and cost four times as much as they do now.

Re:Debatable, for the following...

[Shatrat]

It's going to be replaced anyway as it becomes obsolete...
One example would be a Nortel OC-192 shelf from a decade ago. You can now replace the entire rack-sized unit consuming almost 3,000 watts with a few cards consuming maybe 200 watts in a smaller chassis.
Equipment is getting more dense and more power-efficient regardless of what Bell Labs does.

That efficiency will allow us...

[blahplusplus]

... to grow the network eliminating the benefits of energy efficiency by allowing us to expand the network and consume more energy!

Re:That efficiency will allow us...

[bakawolf]

if we can have 1000x the network, using the same power, I think we're doing good.

Re:That efficiency will allow us...

[Dan Ost]

But we'll be getting more from that energy, so it's still a win.

come back to me when

[nimbius]

you think your network energy levels are over 9000.

thanks, im here all night. just throw money.

1 million!

[mooingyak]

I say networks can be 1 MILLION times more energy efficient. Beat that, Bell Labs.

More important net green effect is education

[presidenteloco]

In the global human energy use game, the network energy use is close to noise level,
and can be probably thought of as offset by the efficiencies the net brings to other
business activities (like removing the need to fly to conferences, eliminating personal
sales calls, coordinating supply-demand chains to reduce waste and idling production
lines, allowing rapid global dissemination of technical and process best practices etc.)

Perhaps its most important effect on energy use and environment will be that it
provides a more efficient forum for discussion and dissemination of knowledge about
environmental problems and solutions. Ambitious Google Earth visualisation projects
and civilisation-strategy games which allow more and more people to be able to get their
head around some of these large-scale, long-term issues that are hard to grok if
you are not a math/science nerd. That and all the free public lectures on advanced
topics, and of course the vast knowledge base of wikipedia, which can allow rapid
but fairly precise communication and debate about important environmental and
technology choice issues (e.g. are electric cars cool? practical? affordable? effective
at reducing climate change? why or why not? How do I insulate my house properly in
a cold but humid climate? etc.)

Knowledge sharing and the rapid spreading of radical new cultural and technological
memes and attitudes. That is the most important effect that the net will have on
energy use and contribution to global warming or its solution.

The electrically efficient net is a nice-to-have, but pales in comparison to these
other factors.

Re:More important net green effect is education

[dbIII]

In the global human energy use game, the network energy use is close to noise level

.
Yes, but the real effect of reducing this is longer battery life for mobile devices. Don't write it off just because it isn't replacing every streetlight with an array of LEDs, it still sounds useful.

Sigh,

[Deliveranc3]

This is something we can't get working properly now! What the fuck greenies! This is like going after nuclear power, if you win this one humanity is fucked.

RCA Airnergy

[bruckie]

Sounds like bad news for these guys. :)

Re:Anonymous Coward

[NotBornYesterday]

http://www.basegear.com/nightstarlight.html
http://www.fleshlight.com/

Maybe these guys can come up with something for you.

Make it green

[SEWilco]

Obviously it's time to pull all those wasteful orange-clad fibers out and replace them with green-clad fibers.

Wasted wireless energy

[Locke2005]

That "wasted energy" is where the noise immunity comes from. Drop the signal to just above the noise level, and the error rate goes way up. I think most people would rather pay higher energy costs than drop more packets, but for mobile devices the inverse might be true.

No more PHP sending XML for AJAX

[istartedi]

No more PHP sending XML for AJAX.

Assembly sending BER encoded ASN.1 for browsers written in Forth.

Get crackin'.

India has done it

[AHuxley]

With smarter solar rural base stations. Why can they do it?
A smart person sat down and ***designed*** a new system.
Stop hacking onto the US/NSA rustbelt revenue stream and start thinking.
http://www.vnl.in/technology/cleantech/
http://www.vnl.in/productsheets/worldgsm_village_site.pdf

We have energy saving features already

[kregg]

For example - Cisco routers have the ability to hibernate PoE ports and turn off modules at certain times of the day or when they are not required. With Virtualised environments you can turn of VMs for times when you have lighter load etc. I am sure other hardware/OS has features like this but people just need to use them.

Nice to hear from you Bjorn

[presidenteloco]

It is truly pathetic how these gas-guzzlin' deniers are grasping at straws to maintain
their totally untenable position.

On the one hand: 800 Scientist contributors + 2500 scientific reviewers work went into the latest IPCC
assessment report.

http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/IPCCflyer_lr.pdf

On the other hand: A few stolen personal emails by a few scientists in Britain had some ambiguously interpretable language, that could have been talking about trickery or how to format some summary
data, or how exactly to interpolate in the presence of uncertainty.

Hmmmmmm. You figure it out.

Re:Free Broadband for All

[The End Of Days]

Dismissing little things like paying for the equipment and the maintenance thereof, is profit unreasonable? Or is it that your personal greed for bandwidth is the unbeatable trump?

There's still a Bell Labs?

[vaporland]

There's no more Western Electric or Bell System, so it surprises me to hear that Bell Labs is still around. That's good if it is the Bell Labs, the one that invented the transistor, laser, microwave communications, the UNIX operating system, satellites, etc.

Then again, AT&T is not the same AT&T that was around before Judge Greene broke it up in 1984, so I hope it hasn't become some kind of "no Bell Labs left behind" that provides jobs for underachieving American Dilbertized engineers...