Page 286 - Shaping smarter and more sustainable cities - Striving for sustainable development goals

ITU‐T Recommendation L.1410 provides a "Methodology for environmental life cycle assessments
of information and communication technology goods, networks and services 30 ". This
Recommendation is part of a series of Recommendations dealing with the environmental impact
assessment of ICTs.
Recommendation ITU‐T L.1400 "Overview and general principles of methodologies for assessing the
environmental impact of information and communication technologies" provides a general
framework and guidance and describes the full series. This Recommendation has been developed
to complement ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 for the assessment of the life cycle impact of ICT goods,
networks and services. It focuses on the assessment of energy consumption and greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions.

The development of ICTs has led to concerns regarding its environmental impact. Taking into
consideration the on‐going efforts within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change [b‐UNFCCC] to combat climate change, ITU‐T decided to develop an internationally agreed
methodology to help the ICT sector to assess the environmental impact of ICT goods, networks and
services, focusing on energy consumption and GHG emissions.

2.5 Example of designing an open access network for smart cities

2.5.1 Background

Establishing the "Smart Cities" is a biggest trend around the globe in Developed countries. The
concept of the smart cities is to deploy advanced Voice, Data, Video and Control & Management
Communication Systems and provide high tech connectivity services to residential and Business
users and at the same time deploy hi‐tech city management and community information portals.
World's great economies like Middle Eastern Countries have already started working on developing
Smart Cities and couple of projects execution is in progress. At the same time it has become a normal
practice to receive RFPs for Telecom and Network parts of Smart Cities from different Governments
and Organizations.

In this document an effort has been made to share some experience which has been learnt while
designing and planning Smart City Network Solutions in Saudi Arabia. Although this is a huge topic
and it is difficult to explain all the details on few pages, efforts have been made to convey high level
information which can be useful for Product and Solution Managers.

2.5.2 Needs and challenges

The major focus here is on the Communication Network Part of the Smart Cities Projects. Although
there are different approaches in deploying Communication network for residential and business
users e.g., Active Ethernet, PON Networks etc. but GPON is the choice of most of the Network
operators around the globe. Although there are different pros and cons of the two solutions but
GPON is the choice of majority of the operators due to its Economy of Scale and Ease of Deployment
and Management.

____________________
30 This Recommendation provides specific guidance on energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) impacts.
Recommendation ITU‐T L.1410 is organized in two parts: Part I (clause 5) – ICT life cycle assessment:
framework and guidance. Part I deals with the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology applied to ICT
goods, networks and services (ICT GNS). Part II (clause 6) – Comparative analysis between ICT and a
reference product system (baseline scenario); framework and guidance. Part II deals with comparative
analysis based on LCA results of an ICT GNS product system and a referenced product system.

276 ITU‐T's Technical Reports and Specifications