Mobile operators demand standards for energy monitoring

"The Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) alliance is calling for standardized ways to measure energy consumption, saying that the industry cannot deliver on its efficiency and sustainability goals without them. A report issued by the association, which represents mobile operators and vendors, says that energy metering is not sufficiently standardized across the industry, and this hinders efforts to manage the energy footprint of networks."

"A move from basic energy monitoring to more advanced observability and management is essential, according to the report, including the ability to map energy consumption to individual network functions, services, and slices. Energy usage is becoming a major concern for mobile operators, according to the NGMN. This is hardly surprising given rising costs in many regions, while consumption is growing due to various factors. Because of this, detailed energy metering is set to become a standard feature of telecoms equipment."

"The problem is that metering functions are set to be defined by a number of different telecoms standards organizations, the report states, which would complicate efforts to get a coherent picture of energy use across all parts of the network infrastructure. Also complicating the picture are network slices, a feature of 5G that is becoming more common as 5G Standalone (5G SA) network technology is rolled out."

NGMN calls for standardized energy measurement across mobile networks, asserting that standardization is essential to meet efficiency and sustainability goals. Energy metering remains insufficiently standardized, hindering management of network energy footprints. Advanced observability and management are needed to map energy consumption to individual network functions, services and slices. Rising costs and growing consumption make detailed energy metering a likely standard feature of telecom equipment. Multiple standards organizations defining metering functions would complicate coherent energy accounting across infrastructure. 5G network slices, which span multiple network domains, further complicate end-to-end energy measurement.

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