Alcatel lucent has recently launched a new green telecom initiative aimed at making the world's communications networks 1000 times more energy efficient. It believes that a thousand-fold reduction is roughly equivalent to being able to power the world's communications networks, including the internet, for three years using the same amount of energy that it currently takes to run them for a single day. The new body, Green Touch, has the backing of several European governments and participation from carriers such as AT&T and China Mobile, and research institutes like MIT and CEA-LETI.

Alcatel Lucent said the 1000-fold target was based on Bell Labs research that showed that today's information and communication technology (ICT) networks had the potential to be 10,000 times more efficient than they are today. It says Green Touch aims to deliver within five years reference network architecture and demonstrations of the key components required to realize this improvement.

Rapid advancements in telecommunications have resulted in unprecedented growth, record infrastructure investments and accelerated service innovation. But as billions of devices access the growing number of networks and platforms on the global information grid, the energy that is used to keep the data flowing and networks buzzing is running out and changing the world's climate. But such initiatives prove that the telecom industry is doing its bit to save the environment. The industry is now witnessing a fundamental shift in thinking about ICT from a focus on optimizing networks for maximum capacity to optimizing them for energy efficiency.