NGMN Alliance Calls for Standardized Energy Measurement in Mobile Networks
The Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) alliance emphasizes the urgent need for standardized methods to measure energy consumption across the telecom industry, stressing that such standards are crucial for achieving efficiency and sustainability goals.
Industry-Wide Need for Standardized Energy Metering
A recent report from the NGMN, which includes mobile operators and vendors, highlights that current energy metering practices lack consistency across the industry. This fragmentation hampers efforts to accurately monitor and manage the energy footprint of network infrastructure. The report advocates a shift from basic energy monitoring to advanced observability and management capabilities — including mapping energy consumption to specific network functions, services, and slices.
Image representing energy monitoring tools
Rising Energy Concerns with 5G and Network Slicing
Energy consumption is becoming a significant concern for telecom operators, driven by rising costs and increasing data demand. As 5G network deployment expands, particularly with 5G Standalone (5G SA) network technology that utilizes network slices, detailed energy metering is expected to become a standard feature of telecom hardware.
Network slicing allows operators to create virtual networks tailored for specific applications, such as low latency or high reliability, spanning multiple network segments. However, the diversity of standards—created by various industry bodies—complicates efforts to develop a unified view of energy usage across these slices.
The Impact of 5G Hardware on Energy Efficiency
While 5G hardware is more energy-efficient than previous generations—claims suggest reductions of up to 90%—overall energy consumption may still increase due to growing data volumes, as highlighted in a 2022 report. This underscores the importance of unified energy measurement standards as the industry advances into more complex and disaggregated architectures.
Image of 5G equipment and infrastructure
Industry Statements and Future Directions
Laurent Leboucher, Chair of NGMN’s board and EVP of Networks at Orange Group, emphasizes: "Energy consumption is a significant challenge from both cost and environmental perspectives. Moving toward virtualized, cloud-native architectures requires industry-wide standards to measure energy use transparently."
The NGMN report recommends consolidating and harmonizing standards to enable effective energy management across both fixed and mobile networks. It also advocates for developing a standardized API to expose and control network slice capabilities, including energy consumption metrics.
Image of modern network infrastructure
Conclusion
As the telecom industry evolves, establishing common frameworks and APIs for energy measurement is vital. Such standards will facilitate better energy efficiency, transparency, and sustainability in the deployment of future networks.
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Sources:
- [NGMN Alliance Report on Energy Measurement](#)
- [5G Energy Efficiency Claims](#)
- [Industry Efforts in Network Slicing and Standards](#)