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Cover Story
Fiber to the Home
Is Green Technology
Evidence is mounting that fiber to the home – in addition to all of its other
benefits – is a plus for the environment. A new model from PricewaterhouseCoopers
helps providers make the environmental case for fiber.
By Steven S. Ross and Masha Zager ■ Broadband Properties
New capital projects have always had to pass an ROI test
– for return on investment. Today, they need to pass an
ROE test, too – return on environment. It’s no longer
prudent to assume that oil will remain cheap and plentiful, or
that climate change will wait until the far-off future, or that
the oceans can absorb any amount of pollutants. Before any
large project is approved, people are asking, “Is this part of the
problem, or part of the solution”
Fiber-to-the-home network builders need to be able to answer
this question, just like builders of power plants or data
centers or office buildings. Often they need to answer more
detailed questions, too, like, “If we used this material instead
of that material, or this design instead of that design, how does
that affect the environmental payback period”
Gauging a network’s environmental impact isn’t just a way
of justifying the project, or of optimizing its design. As federal
and state policies change and carbon taxes, cap-and-trade rules
or other “green” regulations take effect, a hefty price tag may
be attached to environmental damage. If network builders are
going to be charged for their environmental impact – or financially
rewarded for building green – they’ll need to know what
that impact is. (See box on facing page.)
The telecom giants are already moving in this direction.
Verizon has told its suppliers it wants energy-consumption savings
of 20 percent for new equipment. And Qwest is looking
to fiber and low-energy components for its spread-out network.
But until recently, few deployers have had the tools to answer
Evidence is beginning to emerge
showing that fiber-to-the-home
networks are, in fact, a key part of
the solution. And new tools are
becoming available to calculate the
environmental costs and benefits
of any particular network.
You can learn more about FTTH
and sustainability at the Broadband
Summit, April 27–29, 2009,
from Mike Smalley of Carina
Technology, Michael Render
of RVA and others.
these questions for themselves and for their customers. It seems
intuitively clear that a powerful communications network will
reduce the need for travel, but how do the environmental benefits
of lowering travel compare with the environmental costs
of putting the network in the ground
Fiber Is Part of the Solution
Now, evidence is beginning to emerge showing that fiber-tothe-home
networks are, in fact, a key part of the solution. And
new tools are becoming available to calculate the environmental
costs and benefits of any particular network.
Recently the Fiber-to-the-Home Council commissioned
Ecobilan, a Paris-based PricewaterhouseCoopers subsidiary, to
develop an environmental model for a typical US deployment
of FTTH. (The full report is available at www.ftthcouncil.org,
and information about Ecobilan’s earlier measurements of the
impacts of FTTH in Europe can be found in our April 2008
issue or the latest FTTH Primer, both on www.bbpmag.com.)
Here’s what Ecobilan found:
• An FTTH network is likely to be net-positive environmentally
after only four to six years, even if telecommuting is the
only benefit.
The environmental costs Ecobilan looked at covered the
entire network life cycle, from equipment manufacture to laying
the fiber in the ground to final disposal. The researchers
also examined many different types of environmental effects
– not just greenhouse gas emissions, but other impacts as well,
28 | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproperties.com | January/February 2009