- Bumrah takes four as India bowl out Bangladesh for 149
- Sri Lanka 134-1 to take upper hand in first New Zealand Test
- Bayern's Kompany calls for game cap for players amid strike talks
- Christie's expands Hong Kong footprint in hope of art market 'pickup'
- Sultry screen legend Sophia Loren turns 90
- Cambodian opposition figure in court on incitement charge
- Bumrah takes three wickets to have Bangladesh in trouble at 112-8
- Kimchi threat as heatwave drives up South Korea cabbage prices
- UK economic data delivers fresh blow to new govt
- China to 'gradually resume' seafood imports from Japan after Fukushima ban
- India minister blames dam release for flooding
- O'Rourke strikes early for Kiwis as Sri Lanka trail by three
- Deep takes two as Bangladesh totter in reply to India's 376
- Israel pounds Lebanon's Hezbollah after device blasts
- Revolution or mirage? Controversy surrounds new Alzheimer's drugs
- Ashwin's 113 powers India to 376 in Bangladesh Test
- Biden opens home to 'Quad' leaders for farewell summit
- Sally Rooney returns with 30-something questions
- Wallabies sense 'massive' chance to upset All Blacks
- Taiwan questions two in probe into Hezbollah pagers
- Viral Korean Olympic shooter scores first acting role as assassin
- Farrell set for 'challenge' of downing Bordeaux in Top 14
- Springbok Etzebeth diverts attention from looming caps record
- Inter on a high ahead of Milan derby as Napoli face Juve test
- Bank of Japan leaves key interest rate unchanged
- Arnold quits after six years in charge of Australia
- Asian markets track Wall Street record to extend global rally
- Guirassy and Anton to return to Stuttgart with new side Dortmund
- Marseille bidding to continue 'almost perfect' Ligue 1 start
- Arnold quits as coach of Australia men's football team
- Harris and Oprah hold star-studded US election rally
- Allies to remember failed WWII parachute operation
- Perez leading new-look Villarreal charge against leaders Barca
- Man City face Arsenal in Premier League title showdown, Postecoglou under pressure
- Fake celebrity endorsements, snubs plague US presidential race
- Documentary brings Argentine 'death flights' to the big screen
- Strike shows challenge to Boeing 'reset' of labor relations
- World leaders to gather at UN as crises grow and conflicts rage
- How plastic pollution poses challenge for Canada marine conservation
- Scientists track plastic waste in pristine Canada marine park
- South Africa's Buhai grabs LPGA Queen City lead
- Japan inflation firms to 2.8% ahead of BoJ rate decision
- Russia's Kadyrov accuses Musk of 'remotely disabling' his Cybertruck
- Titan sub had to abort a dive days before fatal implosion: testimony
- Ohtani makes MLB history with first 50-homer, 50-steal season
- Ohtani eyes MLB history after surpassing 50 stolen bases, 49 homers
- Ohtani eyes MLB history after surpassing 50 stolen bases
- Barca downed by Monaco as Arsenal held in Champions League stalemate
- Head's 'good night at office' after century seals win over England
- Dubois seeks legitimacy with Joshua scalp
Is 5G truly green, or will it burn up more resources?
The tech industry has long tried to align with the green movement, though its leaders are often accused of spouting nebulous slogans and making hard-to-test pledges.
The Mobile World Congress, an industry get-together in Barcelona, certainly saw some sloganeering. But Huawei, Orange and industry body GSMA attempted to flesh out some of the green claims made about 5G.
The next-generation mobile network is being rolled out across the globe, with promises of super-fast internet going hand-in-hand with claims of massive benefits for the environment.
Laurence Williams of Sussex university in the UK recently led research assessing the available evidence on the supposed green gains of 5G.
He told AFP how the industry's claims stack up.
- Will 5G be more energy efficient? -
Jean-Marie Chaufray of Orange hailed power-saving features such as "sleep modes", whereby components are switched off when they are not being used, and more energy efficient antennae and other hardware.
He told the MWC that 5G would be "10 times more efficient" than 4G by 2025.
"Mobile data traffic is set to continue growing dramatically in the coming years. It is increasingly acknowledged that 5G will at least in part be the cause of this data traffic growth.
"Various estimates have been put out by the industry -- some suggest network energy consumption will fall, others that it can remain flat, at least one estimate suggests that network energy consumption will rise due to 5G.
"A recent study from Finland estimated that electricity consumption of the main mobile networks in 2017 was roughly 10 percent higher than in 2010. The authors argue that this was due to rapidly increasing data usage and new functionalities, especially video streaming.
"Whilst this study relates to the period just before 5G started to be rolled out across the world, it nonetheless demonstrates that improvements in the energy efficiency of networks do not guarantee reductions in the energy consumption of networks."
- Will 5G help achieve zero-carbon goals? -
GSMA's Emanuel Kolta boasted that telecoms companies were "among the leading private sector companies" for committing to net-zero goals.
And he marked out the path to achieving those aims through uptake of renewable energy, more efficient batteries and "low-hanging fruit" like using artificial intelligence to enable component shutdowns in less busy periods.
"While some operators already power their networks with 100 percent renewable energy, a 2021 benchmarking study from GSMA suggested that looking across 31 networks in 28 diverse countries an average of 46 percent of energy consumption was supplied by renewable sources with significant variation between countries.
"The operational energy required to power mobile networks is important, but so is the 'embodied energy' required to produce network infrastructure.
"A lot of research looking at the energy use implications of 5G only looks at operational energy.
"At the very least, we should be sceptical about the claimed energy saving potential of strategies that require the large-scale introduction of new infrastructure based on assessments that fail to consider the embodied energy costs of that infrastructure."
- Does 5G bring wider energy savings? -
Duan Hao from Huawei flagged up the importance of the so-called enablement effect, which he said would "accelerate digitisation and decarbonisation across industries".
The idea is that better connectivity will allow more services and activities to move online, reducing energy consumption from transport and other industries.
Some industry estimates suggest energy saving at a ratio of 10-to-one -- every unit of energy invested in 5G will save 10 more.
"However, others have cautioned that 5G-enabled efficiency improvements may simply lead to the greater consumption of particular goods or services or may only partially substitute for older goods or services -- people may still attend in person meetings and buy physical music alongside teleconferencing and music streaming.
"Even if 5G does produce enablement effects that exceed its own emissions, it doesn’t necessarily follow that network operators could be allowed to achieve lower levels of emissions reductions.
"Enablement effects are difficult to estimate or measure and clear accounting mechanisms and principles would have to be established to ensure consistency with carbon budgets and climate policy."
J.Horn--BTB