Don Carli Jun 25, 2009

Given that data transmission requires prodigious amounts of energy, what is Cisco’s forecast for the carbon footprint of data traffic over the next five years?

Doug Webster Jun 26, 2009

Hi Don, and thanks for the note. The VNI forecast is based on service subscription growth and individual usage, which is then translated to the overall IP traffic on the network required to support them all. We haven’t attempted to translate that into carbon footprint equivalent in part because, while we have service-level inputs, we can’t necessarily say how many pieces of equipment participated in the delivery of the streams, especially given the dynamic nature of the internet and our own mobility (for example, an email from New York to Chicago may be routed through Atlanta to avoid network congestion—or the user may be reading it from Los Angeles via a VPN tunnel. Either one of these would result in a higher carbon footprint of your email than a “straight shot” one delivered from NYC to the Windy City.)

You do bring up a good point on green though and something that we’ve highlighted on this blog in the past and that our engineers are focusing on. For example, our ASR 9000 router, launched this past November and found in a range of IP Next Generation Networks around the world, such as Verizon Wireless in the US and Softbank in Japan, has an innovative modular power supply that permits the provider to only power up the modules needed for the capacity that is being handled vs. having to power up the unit entirely even if, say, only 20% of the capacity is required. It’s sibling, the ASR 1000 router delivers significant power savings compared to other competing platforms as well, in large part due to its ability to perform the functions that normally require multiple types of platforms all in the confines of its compact four inch form factor.  Innovations like this and others throughout our product lines not only help reduce service providers’ operating costs but help to minimize the carbon footprint of the network.

Thanks,
Doug