As the threat of global warming intensifies, ICT systems emerge as one of the fastest growing contributors to CO2 gas emissions. Current estimates put the ICT sector’s share of global energy use to around 10% and this figure is set to rise as our communications needs and data processing needs continue to increase.

A clear trend in Internet use is that video traffic is increasing. This is both due to increased use of streaming media (IPTV, Youtube etc.) in the down link as well as increased user generation (upload of video to Facebook, Youtube, Vimeo etc). At the same time, the market share of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers is increasing. These devices have in common than they are battery operated and thus have limited power resources.

This is a problem since video often requires high data rates and complex processing, which leads to substantial energy requirements. It is possible to adapt the video delivery system and thereby offloading the mobile devices but this comes at a cost in the network infrastructure. In this project, we are investigating different ways the total ICT infrastructure can be greened without sacrificing battery life time on the mobile devices.

Funding: Funded by EUREKA CELTIC+ by VINNOVA

For more information contact: Björn Landfeldt