Green Touch

Green Touch is an initiative of Bell Labs in which many well-known companies in the information and communications technology sector as well as national and international network operators participate. The goal defined by Green Touch is to save energy in communications networks.

The target set in 2010 was extremely ambitious, however, and was an efficiency improvement of 1,000 by 2015. This would mean that by 2015 Green Touch would be presenting network components and providing network concepts that require only one per thousand of the current energy expenditure.

In addition to energy savings, Green Touch's activities also aim to reduce CO2 emissions. The goal defined by Green Touch is based on a study by Bell Labs according to which networks and their components could be 10,000 times more efficient than they currently are. A first interim result is LightRadio, a cellular network with distributed intelligence and new antenna technology. Other projects include energy-efficient methods for routing functions based on silicon photonics. Energy savings in broadband communications services and reducing energy consumption in mobile access networks.