How does 5G RAN improve energy efficiency?

How does 5G RAN improve energy efficiency === Kali Pickens: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Network's Tech Talk at Samsung Podcast. I'm your host, Kailey Pickens, and we've got a great conversation for you today. With the rise of global warming, industries are looking for ways to reduce their energy usage, leading energy efficiency, to become a major topic in today's world. The information and communication technologies industry is estimated to contribute 2% of the world's global carbon emissions, but only 15% to 20% of the power in a mobile network is used for data traffic. Kali Pickens: The rest is where telecom vendors and operators are looking to make major improvements in power reduction, cutting energy usage, and the cost savings that comes along with that are significant goals for mobile companies. Gsm. A intelligence reports that nearly 85% of network managers and buyers rate energy efficiency in sustainability as very or extremely important and their highest rated priority. Kali Pickens: Today we're going to talk with Derek Johnston, head [00:01:00] of 5G marketing at Samsung Electronics America, about what the telecom industry and Samsung are doing to help reduce global power usage and carbon emissions. Welcome, Derek. Derek Johnston: Hey, Kailey. How are you? Kali Pickens: Good. Um, so to begin, how is 5G different from previous wireless generations and how it looks at energy Derek Johnston: conservation? Derek Johnston: Sure. Uh, so 5G was the first, uh, mobile standard that was developed, uh, with sustainability in mine, in, in the sense that. Uh, when the standard was developed, uh, the, the standards body looked at spectral efficiency and approving spectral efficiency, 90% over 4G lte. And so inherent in that spectral efficiency is, is energy efficiency. Derek Johnston: So, uh, so again, the, the standard has the built-in kind of a sustainability, uh, as, as part of it in the evolution of a mobile technology. So Kali Pickens: a 90% improvement in spectral efficiency. I feel like that's aiming pretty high. What are operators and vendors doing to help reach that goal? Derek Johnston: Sure. So [00:02:00] there's a variety of things that, that we have done with, uh, both our operator, uh, customers and ecosystem partners. Derek Johnston: And so, uh, start 4G lte. Uh, when you have the, that deployment, a lot of the bands, uh, that were initially deployed we're on single band radios, for example. And so now we're starting to get two form factors where we go to dual. And, uh, TRID and radios. So those radios were, were packing more spectrum support into a single radio can do things like share a power amplifier and so that helps reduce the overall, um, power draw of the network. Derek Johnston: There's other technologies like massive milo and bead forming technologies where cramming more kind of capacity and the ability to serve users into a, a single radio, but also. The energy that is required to transmit those particular, their particular data stream to an end device is also much more efficient. Derek Johnston: And then lastly, uh, you know, when we start to look at things that, that Samsung is focused on, like the software driven ran, we're taking, [00:03:00] uh, The ran and virtualizing it, and by nature of virtualizing it and, and making more of the function software driven, we're able to introduce features that, uh, are specific to energy savings and things that were helping the operators dynamically. Derek Johnston: Uh, just the, the, for example, the, the power usage of the network when it's not being used, and to turn down some of those radios. And save a lot on energy. So, uh, there's a lot of, uh, different initiatives that, uh, we're employing to, to get to that, uh, that optimal, uh, usage, if you will. So I Kali Pickens: don't think it's any surprise to anyone, but, um, you know, 5G is obviously gonna require a lot more cell sites than L T E or 3G in order to meet those capacity and latency requirements. Kali Pickens: Um, what is being done to reduce the power needed at each site? Sure. Derek Johnston: So, um, you know, I, I think it's an excellent question, but I think, you know, one thing that I'd like to address is that it's a little bit of a myth, um, out there when you say that 5G is going to require, you know, more cell sites in and of itself. Derek Johnston: [00:04:00] So while it's true that, uh, that is really a function of demand as opposed to the actual, the technology itself. So, okay, if you, so for, as an example, if you were to take. 5G and deploy it on the same spectrum that is deployed with like, for example, 4G lte, and then put the same, you know, environmental constraints on it, uh, users and same area, et cetera. Derek Johnston: Uh, 5G would be inherently much more, uh, efficient in terms of, and, and require a lot less energy in order to support those users. Now that being said, what we do know is, for example, if you look at, at South Korea, um, after two years after they had built their out there nationwide network. Those, uh, subscribers were using upwards of two and a half times the amount of 4G LTE service, and so, Uh, we do know that, you know, again, if you build the network, uh, and it has more, you know, more speeds and throughput, uh, users will, will ultimately use that, um, that available, uh, network capacity. Derek Johnston: And so that will require, again, more, [00:05:00] uh, capacity to be built into the networks and thus more sites. So one approach, uh, that the industry is taking is, you know, the construction of the cell sites themselves. And so there are things, uh, in terms of the radio technology that we're building in. Uh, where we're able to, again, design the radios to, um, draw off less heat, which requires less hvac. Derek Johnston: And so we can build sites, uh, are being redesigned, uh, to reduce the overall hvac, uh, you know, the need for air conditioning within, uh, within the cell sites themselves. And then there's also things, um, that are referenced earlier, things that are really enabled in a, a software driven, uh, ran or virtualized network where you do things like smart sleep where we can reduce the power usage. Derek Johnston: Uh, or power output of those of radios when the traffic demands aren't as high. And so those things, uh, you know, there, there are forecasts out there that, that smart sleep, uh, functions will be able to enable up to, you know, 40% reduction in terms of base baseband power usage. And so those, that's real meaningful.[00:06:00] Derek Johnston: Um, uh, you know, uh, delivery in terms of, of costs and, uh, you know, energy efficiencies to the, to the operators bottom Kali Pickens: line. So we've. Covered how 5G is going to save power in the telco industry, right? But how are those impacts going to affect other industries? Like what are the 5G and sustainability impacts on other industries related to this? Derek Johnston: If you start to think through the, you know, kind of the network effect that, um, you know, 4G LT certainly had this, right? It was a, a platform that. Enabled a lot of other business, you know, new business, uh, developments and, and, um, certainly enabled the growth of, of certain areas. And so I think we know, I think there's, there's been a lot of discussion that 5G will do the same. Derek Johnston: And to that extent, uh, you know, I think the industry is looking at the enterprise space as really, uh, probably where the most impact will be seen initially from, from 5g. And so [00:07:00] I think there are areas around automation in industries like. Uh, transportation, manufacturing, where there's an incredible amount of automation that needs to happen where you, where you can drive efficiencies and particularly, uh, around energy, ef uh, efficiency, right, and savings. Derek Johnston: Cause those, those industries typically use an incredible amount of energy. Their facilities have. You know, a ton of either equipment, um, or, or systems that are running, uh, constantly. And so one city examined about 31 different use cases over several industries and forecasted significant, uh, energy savings that will be achieved over the next, uh, few years. Derek Johnston: And, and in those particular industries that I mentioned in like manufacturing and transportation, They're forecasted to save about 20 to 25%, um, of, in terms of the total 5G enabled carbon abatement across those, those use cases. Um, uh, by 2025. So let's just, you know, again, just right around the corner. Derek Johnston: Yeah. Kali Pickens: So it's gonna improve a, you know, processes and also save on power. Those pretty process. Except exactly. So [00:08:00] are there other power receiving technologies that Samsung is using to reduce their customer's energy usage? So I Derek Johnston: think, you know, Samsung broadly, uh, you know, in terms of sustainability, it's, it's, um, part of our, part of our core values. Derek Johnston: It was. Even before, you know, sustainability became, yeah. Have the word of the year, if you will, the hot topic of the day. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Uh, and so it's, it's, you know, we've tried to design our products with, um, you know, kind of an eco-conscious, uh, approach and have a, um, Have a, have an initiative, a broad global initiative called Everyday Sustainability, where again, whether it's big programs that we're putting in place or even just making small changes, um, to business processes that will, will again affect sustainability or energy savings or things that we can do that are, that are gonna help. Derek Johnston: Um, The environment I, I, you know, is kind of built into the DNA of the company. Now that being said, on the networks business, you know, the first thing that we look at obviously is, you know, in terms of our product design. And so there are [00:09:00] two areas that we've been laser focused on, um, that help drive, you know, sustainability. Derek Johnston: One is in the chipset side, um, with our, with our chip at business. Another piece is, is driving more, uh, software into the ran. And so just at at MBC this year, we. Uh, launched vRAN 3.0, which is taking, you know, our industry leading position in, uh, virtualization of the ran to the next level. And that's enabling us to introduce a whole host of new features, some of which are, um, specifically focused on energy savings. Derek Johnston: And so, It's things like power amplifiers that are equipped with bias control. You can turn, you can adjust the, the voltage down while still maintaining, um, adequate service levels. Um, gives operators flexibility in terms of their baso mimo to lower again with a lower power consumption when, uh, the usage on site is not necessarily. Derek Johnston: Uh, you know, at peak levels or it's [00:10:00] off peak. And so that's in addition to kind of some of these sleep mode savings, uh, things that we're talking about. And then in terms of the chip sets, uh, that I had mentioned, our, uh, as we design and and manufacture our own chip sets, uh, the system on a chip, uh, approach that, that, uh, or our SOCs, that, that combine everything from t p u memory, GPUs, stacking all these things into a single chip. Derek Johnston: Uh, our, our designs have been able to produce over, um, 70% kind of power consumption savings over previous generations. And so the, there's some amazing stuff that our, our, our semiconductor business has been able to do, uh, to really improve both at the radio and on the device level, the, the power requirements. Derek Johnston: Um, and so that's, you know, again, on the radio and, uh, and our software side of the business, uh, the contributions that we've been making, but, We also take that all the way down to how are we packaging our equipment and, and sending it to our [00:11:00] customers, and making sure that we've got the lightest, you know, biodegradable and in eco, uh, friendly, um, materials in included in the, in those radios that we're shipping out. Derek Johnston: So, um, you know, we're trying to look at it and, and at it from an end-to-end perspective in terms of the contributions and, and, uh, things that we could do. Kali Pickens: Derek, thank you so much for your time today. Derek Johnston: Thank you. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Kali Pickens: With global mobile data, traffic rates continuing to rise in applications requiring low latency proliferating, we will see networks continue to densify in the number of cell sites balloon. Kali Pickens: That said, the telecom industry is committed to finding ways to bring the amount of power used and lowering our carbon emissions footprint to run our networks. The mobile Net zero report from G S M A reports that 63% of the industry by revenue and 44% by connections have committed to rapidly cutting their emissions over the next decade. Kali Pickens: We are all excited to see the power saving techniques and features we've discussed today. Continue to advance around the globe and to [00:12:00] our audience, thank you for participating in today's podcast and we look forward to seeing you next time on Networks Tech.