Alcatel-Lucent, AT&T start efficiency project

Alcatel-Lucent SA, AT&T Inc. and other companies teamed up with governments, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other colleges to make communications networks 1,000 times more energy-efficient.

The Green Touch initiative will "invent and deliver radical new approaches to energy efficiency that will be at the heart of sustainable networks," the companies said in a joint statement today.

Energy consumption of fixed-line and wireless internet networks is surging as more and more consumers and companies upload and share videos, images and other information over the Web. The 1,000-fold efficiency target is based on research by Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs unit that networks could potentially be 10,000 times more efficient then they are today.

Alcatel-Lucent, based in Paris, is the world's largest supplier of fixed-line phone networks, and Dallas-based AT&T is the second-largest U.S. wireless carrier.

Other Green Touch founding members are Telefonica SA, China Mobile Ltd., Portugal Telecom SGPS SA, Swisscom AG, Stanford University's Wireless Systems Lab, the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control, the University of Melbourne's Institute for a Broadband-Enabled Society and the CEA-LETI Applied Research Institute for Microelectronics.

"Truly global challenges have always been best addressed by bringing together the brightest minds in an unconstrained, creative environment," Steven Chu, U.S. Secretary of Energy, said in the statement.

Within five years, the Green Touch initiative aims to deliver a reference network architecture and demonstrations of the key components required to cut network energy consumption. The first meeting of the group will take place in February. Other companies are welcome to join the initiative, according to the statement.