Communications Turn Totally Green

Green Touch(TM) Initiative Targets 1000-Fold Improvement in Energy Efficiency by Transforming Internet and Communications Networks

LONDON, January 11 - The world took a big step closer today to a green and more sustainable
communications future with the launch of Green Touch(TM), a global consortium
organized by Bell Labs, whose goal is to create the technologies needed to
make communications networks 1000 times more energy efficient than they are
today.

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.

Today's Green Touch press conference will be available via a video
webcast at 2:30 p.m. GMT (3:30 p.m. CET/9:30 a.m. ET) through the following
link: www.greentouch.org

Green Touch brings together leaders in industry, academia and government
labs to invent and deliver radical new approaches to energy efficiency that
will be at the heart of sustainable networks in the decades to come. With its
launch, the consortium also has issued an open invitation to all members of
the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) community to join forces
in reaching this ambitious target.

"Truly global challenges have always been best addressed by bringing
together the brightest minds in an unconstrained, creative environment. This
was what we used when putting a man on the moon and is the same approach we
need to implement to address the global climate crisis. The Green Touch
initiative is an example of such a response - bringing together scientists
and technologists from around the world and from many different disciplines
in an environment of open innovation to attack the problem from many
different directions," said Dr. Steven Chu, US Secretary of Energy.

"The ICT sector is perfectly placed to bring its innovative and
technological forces to bear in the low carbon transition as well as in
curbing its own carbon footprint. The Green Touch Initiative shows how
business can play its part in delivering the low carbon society we are
working to achieve. With Government creating an environment in which
innovation can flourish, we welcome industry coming together with academia to
create the research, technology and solutions necessary to reduce carbon
emissions," said Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate
Change, UK.

"Industry has to play a major role in the drive to increasing global
energy efficiency. This is both a matter of environmental responsibility and
competitiveness. We regularly endorse such projects in our "pole de
compétitivité" (competiveness cluster) policy and the Eureka clusters. This
is a particularly crucial area of focus because of increasing usage of ICT
and the Internet. The world-wide Green Touch consortium will open the way to
generating major technological breakthroughs. France supports this project,
which is open to all and in which two major French labs are founding
members," said Christian Estrosi, Minister for Industry, France.

"Climate change is an enormous and immediate challenge that needs to be
address globally and with bold actions. It is only through harnessing the
best minds around the world, regardless of their mother companies, industry,
or nationality, that we will make the difference we need to. The Green Touch
consortium, with its open innovation model that harnesses the leading minds
across the globe and includes experts from every part of ICT, is the model
for the sort of radical initiatives that we need to address the huge
challenge of global warming," said Jong-Soo Yoon, Director General, Ministry
of Environment, South Korea.

"The Portuguese Government has been taking measures to promote the
production of energy by clean technologies. The Green Touch initiative calls
our attention to the importance of the network and collaboration between
different institutions when we face global challenges as sustainable
development. I encourage the participants of this initiative to bring good
solutions to promote the energy efficiency of communication networks," said
Paulo Campos, Secretary of State for Public Works and Communications,
Portugal.

"Over the next decade billions more people will upload and share video,
images and information over public and private networks as we communicate
with each other in new, rich ways. We also expect ICT usage to dramatically
increase as other industries use networks to reduce their own carbon
footprints. This naturally leads to an exponential growth in ICT energy
consumption which we, as an industry, have to jointly address. This
consortium is unique in looking way beyond making incremental efficiency
improvements and tapping into innovation and expertise from around the globe
to achieve fundamental breakthroughs in ICT carbon emissions reduction," Gee
Rittenhouse, vice president of research at Bell Labs and consortium lead.

    Green Touch Initiative founding members include:

    - Service Providers: AT&T, China Mobile, Portugal Telecom,
      Swisscom, Telefonica

    - Academic Research Labs: The Massachusetts Institute of
      Technology's (MIT) Research Laboratory for Electronics (RLE), Stanford
      University's Wireless Systems Lab (WSL), the University of Melbourne's
      Institute for a Broadband-Enabled Society (IBES)

    - Government and Nonprofit Research Institutions: The CEA-LETI
      Applied Research Institute for Microelectronics (Grenoble, France),
      imec (Headquarters: Leuven, Belgium), The French National Institute for
      Research in Computer Science and Control (INRIA)

    - Industrial Labs: Bell Labs, Samsung Advanced Institute of
      Technology (SAIT), Freescale Semiconductor

This 1000-fold efficiency target is based on research from Bell Labs that
determined that today's information and communication technology (ICT)
networks have the potential to be 10,000 times more efficient then they are
today. This conclusion comes from Bell Labs' analysis of the fundamental
properties of ICT networks and technologies (optical, wireless, electronics,
processing, routing, and architecture) and studying their physical limits by
applying established formulas, such as Shannon's Law [[1]].

"With the boom in broadband usage, ICT energy consumption is rapidly
increasing and immediate steps need to be taken to address this trend and
mitigate its impact," said Vernon Turner, Senior Vice President and General
Manager for Enterprise Computing, Network, Consumer, Telecom and
Sustainability at IDC, a leading industry analyst firm. "What distinguishes
the Green Touch Initiative is its commitment to a hugely ambitious yet
quantifiable goal that is rooted in hard science. Its global profile and
multi-disciplinary approach will accelerate the necessary fundamental
rethinking and development of new technologies."

To support its objectives the Green Touch Initiative will deliver –
within five years — a reference network architecture and demonstrations of
the key components required to realize this improvement. This initiative also
offers the potential to generate new technologies and new areas of industry.

The first meeting of the consortium will take place in February and will
be dedicated to establishing the organization's five-year plan, first-year
deliverables, and member roles and responsibilities.

For those companies interested in joining the consortium, please visit
the web site: www.greentouch.org

    Green Touch Member Profiles:

    - AT&T - With a powerful array of network resources that
      includes the nation's fastest 3G network, AT&T is a leading provider of
      wireless, Wi-Fi, high speed Internet and voice services in the United
      States and around the world.
    - CEA-LETI - a leading global research centre committed to creating
      and providing innovative solutions for industry in micro-and
      nanotechnology for telecommunications, healthcare, security,
      transportation and energy/environment applications
    - China Mobile - leading mobile operator with the largest network
      and subscriber base in the world; China Mobile was recognized in the
      Dow Jones Sustainability Index in the past two years
    - Freescale Semiconductor - a global leader in the design and
      manufacture of embedded semiconductors for the automotive, consumer,
      industrial and networking markets
    - imec - performs world-leading research in nano-electronics. Imec
      leverages its scientific knowledge with the innovative power of its
      global partnerships in sustainable ICT, healthcare and energy. imec
      delivers industry-relevant technology solutions
    - The French National Institute for Research in Computer Science
      and Control (INRIA) - dedicated to fundamental and applied research in
      information and communication science and technology (ICST)
    - The Research Laboratory for Electronics (RLE) at Massachusetts
      Institute of Technology (MIT) - first of the Institute's great modern
      interdepartmental academic research centers and one of MIT's largest
      and most diverse research laboratories
    - Portugal Telecom ("PT") - a leading telecommunications provider
      with more than 68 million customers in 13 countries
    - Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) - SAIT, Samsung
      Group's central R&D organization was established in 1987 as the
      Incubator for cutting-edge technologies. SAIT's research fields consist
      of future IT, new materials and device, bio, and energy
    - Swisscom - Switzerland's leading telecoms provider, with 5,5
      million mobile customers and around 1.8 million broadband connections
    - The Wireless Systems Lab (WSL), Stanford University -
      investigates broad areas of wireless system design to meet these
      technical challenges associated with the development of next generation
      wireless communications infrastructure
    - Telefonica - one of the world's largest telecommunications
      companies by market cap operating in 25 countries with a customer base
      exceeding 268.6 million globally
    - The Institute for a Broadband-Enabled Society (IBES), University
      of Melbourne - a cross-disciplinary research institute dedicated to
      products, services, and innovations that maximize the benefit of new
      broadband technologies
    - Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs - leading global research organization
      and innovation engine of Alcatel-Lucent, trusted partner of service
      providers, enterprises and governments worldwide

    Consortium Member Quotes:

    "AT&T looks forward to working with members of the Green Touch
    consortium to achieve a 1000-fold improvement in energy efficiency across
    communications networks. The ICT sector has the unique ability to reduce
    emissions of our customers five times greater than our own emissions by
    enabling unique applications and customer solutions. For AT&T, this
    consortium is a logical fit, building on our corporate goal to reduce our
    energy use relative to the amount of data we carry over our networks."

                            John Stankey, president and CEO, AT&T Operations

    "The CEA-LETI has a long-standing commitment of developing ultra low
    power technologies and energy efficient innovative systems for industry.
    We are proud to join the Green Touch Initiative, bringing our expertise
    over the full chain of energy-aware solutions to expand the footprint of
    new technologies and new concepts for a greener planet, a sustainable
    connected world and a more healthy life for all."

                                              Laurent Malier, CEO, CEA-LETI

    "As a mobile operator with the largest network and subscriber base in the
    world, China Mobile initiated in 2007 the "Green Action Plan" to focus on
    energy saving and carbon emission reduction. We have since then actively
    pushed for reduction of our energy consumption by adopting various kinds
    of energy saving technologies, and joined hands with a large number of
    suppliers and partners to develop a green telecom industry chain. We also
    leverage the strength of mobile communications services to benefit the
    society, and help our customers and communities to reduce carbon
    emission. China Mobile is committed to working jointly with the Green
    Touch Consortium for the green and low-carbon future of ICT."

                                            Wang Jianzhou, CEO, China Mobile

    "Rarely does one have a chance to dramatically change the technical
    landscape while at the same time providing such a positive impact on the
    environment. As the ICT network continues to grow, it is incumbent upon
    the technical community to minimize the carbon footprint through
    technology advances that drastically reduce overall power consumption.
    Freescale is excited and delighted to join the Green Touch Initiative
    which is focused on achieving a 1000-fold decrease in power consumption.
    The program aligns with our fundamental principles of developing and
    delivering innovative technologies for the networking industry."

               Ken Hansen, Senior Fellow, Vice President and Chief Technology
                                            Officer, Freescale Semiconductor.

    "Key to imec's mission is ensuring a sustainable society. Energy
    efficiency is present in all our R&D programs, from energy generation
    over smart grid to highly efficient ultra-low power solutions for smart
    systems. The "Green Touch Initiative" expresses imec's ambition to reduce
    power from the application layer to the device architecture. We are
    enthusiastic to be able to contribute to drastically lowering the energy
    consumption in one of the key enabling technologies for a future with a
    better life for all, communication across the planet, with a "green
    touch."

                                  Luc Van den hove, President and CEO, imec

    "Conceiving the infrastructures of the future sustainable digital society
    is one of our priorities. Energy consumption related to these
    technologies, their environmental impact and the potential for ensuring a
    sustainable development of our societies are key issues that mobilize our
    research teams. With our experience of partnership with numerous public
    and private leaders of research and innovation, we are convinced that the
    joint efforts within the Green Touch Initiative will provide genuine
    solutions to these challenges."

                                     Michel Cosnard, Chairman and CEO, INRIA

    "As communications is an integral part of our infrastructure, the
    attending energy needs are becoming more pressing. The Green Touch
    initiative is a great opportunity to create an intelligent, sustainable
    plan to keep our world connected".

                                Professor Muriel Medard, The Research
     Laboratory for Electronics (RLE) at Massachusetts Institute of
     Technology (MIT)

    "In the course of the last few years, Portugal Telecom has dedicated
    itself to stimulating the implementation of good environmental practices
    in its own organization, suppliers and customers, having defined an
    environmental management policy and mobilized resources so as to comply
    with the best environmental practices. Technological evolution, lesser
    energy dependency of new equipment, free cooling systems, the progressive
    introduction and availability of renewable energies are the main actions
    we have already taken in order to guarantee the efficiency of our ICT
    networks and its carbon emissions. Portugal Telecom is committed to the
    Green Touch project and we believe that together with our partners we can
    effectively do more and better in order to preserve the environment
    quality and assure a significant difference."

                                  Alfredo Baptista, CTO of Portugal Telecom

    "Environmentally conscious management and social responsibility are
    firmly rooted in Swisscom's corporate strategy. Swisscom has been
    operating a systematic environmental management system for eleven years
    and was the world's first telecommunications company to be certified to
    the ISO 14001 environmental standard. Swisscom treats the environment and
    its resources with respect and continuously improves its energy
    efficiency. We are thrilled to participate in this consortium and to
    discover network architecture and operations breakthroughs as well as new
    usage of technologies which would drastically enhance ICT energy
    efficiency."

                  Stéphane Dufour, Head of strategy and innovation, Swisscom

    "ICT technologies have had a tremendous impact worldwide, but these
    technologies were developed under a premise of limited wired and wireless
    network capacity coupled with the low cost of energy. Today network
    capacity has grown tremendously, and so has the financial and
    environmental cost of energy. We must rethink the architecture and design
    of our communication networks to reduce their energy consumption by
    orders of magnitude. The breadth and vision of the consortium in
    addressing this goal as well as the key players involved across industry
    and academia provide a rare opportunity to develop a dramatic leap
    forward next-generation network designs."

                Dr. Andrea Goldsmith, Professor of Electrical Engineering,
                                                      Stanford University

    "The role that the ICT sector has to play in meeting ambitious emissions
    reduction targets is critical and technology is an important tool at its
    disposal. ICT solutions have the potential to reduce by a factor of five
    the sector's own emissions. This is equivalent to 7,8 GTn CO2, or 15% of
    the total world emissions predicted by 2020 (Smart 2020 Report, 2008). It
    is ICT's role and the mission of the Green Touch Initiative to realize
    effectively this potential and in the process raise the political
    discussion in order to foster ICT development in a low carbon
    environment."

                                         Vicente San Miguel, CTO, Telefónica

    "IBES is delighted to be part of this exciting project, and stand with
    other members of the consortium on the threshold of a new era in
    information technology and telecommunications. Outcomes from the Green
    Touch Initiative will be critical to the future of the entire industry."

                                Professor Rod Tucker, Laureate Professor and
                    Director of the University of Melbourne's Institute for a
                                             Broadband-Enabled Society (IBES)

    "What we are witnessing is a fundamental shift in thinking about ICT from
    a focus on optimizing networks for maximum capacity to optimizing them
    for energy efficiency. The consortium we are forming serves as a major
    milestone along the path toward a future where the potential of
    communications networks to meet the demands of their users and benefit
    society is inextricably linked to our success in achieving environmental
    sustainability by reducing energy consumption."

                                            Jeong Kim, President, Bell Labs

About the Green Touch Initiative

Green Touch Initiative, a consortium of leading industry
players, research institutions and non-governmental organizations to define
the challenge, identify solutions and develop solutions with the goal to
deliver the architecture, specifications, roadmap, and demonstrations of key
components needed to reduce ICT energy consumption per bit by a factor of
1,000 from current levels within five years. www.greentouch.org

[1] Shannon's Law is a formula used to predict the useful capacity of any
communications channel.

Green Touch Press Contacts: Peter Benedict, Tel: +33(0)1-40-76-50-84, pbenedict at alcatel-lucent.com; Paul Ross, Tel +1-908-230-8030, paul.ross at alcatel-lucent.com