Summary

Supplement 33 to ITU-T L-series Recommendations describes a methodology for assessing the energy consumption of an information and communication technology (ICT) service. This assessment is based upon the traffic generated by the service and the equipment through which that traffic propagates.

Methods for assessing the power consumption or efficiency of ICT networks have been studied for some time. In many cases, the assessment is focused on equipment and networks rather than on the services that are conveyed by that equipment. Examples include energy consumption rating (ECR) and telecommunications energy efficiency ratio (TEER). In addition to methods dealing primarily with power consumption, Recommendation ITU-T L.1410 provides a methodology for evaluating the environmental impact of ICT equipment, networks and services objectively and transparently, and is based upon life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. Recommendation ITU-T L.1410 gives general principles for service level assessments and allocation of network power consumption between services.

This Supplement proposes a more detailed methodology for an assessment of the power consumption of a specific ICT service that shares infrastructure with other services. This enables companies to allocate power consumption of all segments of the network (i.e., the allocation can be made in the customer premises equipment (CPE), access, metro and core networks) to specific services based on throughput.

This Supplement provides an overview of the method and a 'step-by-step' description of the process.