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• Powering the network, even a passive optical network, also has
significant environmental impacts. For example, the energy
consumed in operating the network for 10 years releases about
the same amount of greenhouse gases as are released by building
the network.
To reach its conclusions, Ecobilan had to make hundreds
of assumptions about how the FTTH network would be built,
what kinds of components and materials would be used, how
many customers would be served, what kinds of fuel are used
to generate electricity, and so forth. The researchers tried to
use assumptions that were typical of fiber networks being deployed
in the United States today – for example, they assumed
a GPON network that was part aerial and part underground.
The result, of course, is a picture of an “average” network
that doesn’t correspond to any individual fiber-to-the-home network
in existence today. And the numbers are already too conservative
– Verizon alone is stimulating the market emergence
of network components that use less energy today than they did
last year. But all of the assumptions are spelled out in detail, and
potential deployers can leverage the existing study themselves or
work with Ecobilan to substitute information about their own
planned networks for the “average” network that Ecobilan modeled.
This will enable them to generate more precise estimates of
the environmental impacts of their planned networks.
Telecommuting Alone Recoups
the Environmental Costs
The biggest environmental benefit from FTTH networks today
– in fact, nearly all of it – comes from telecommuting. This
savings, according to Ecobilan, is large enough to offset the
environmental impact of building and operating the network
within four to six years, depending on network take rates.
Most of the research on FTTH and telecommuting in the
US has been done by Michael Render of RVA LLC, and Ecobilan
relied on his historical research in developing its model.
Render told Broadband Properties, “We have demonstrated
consistently that fiber users are spending more time on average
working from home. Those who have the opportunity are
spending significantly more time.”
Render also says the potential for telecommuting is far
larger than current use patterns would indicate. “Companies
have to certainly look at their procedures, in some cases changing
their own internal regulations. Line people can’t easily
work from home, but often more staff can,” he says. “And the
idea of a blend, in the office so many days and home on other
days, might be attractive to many workers and companies.”
Render notes that in California, FTTH provider Paxio has
been trying to work with companies to develop virtual private
networks that employees can use. A big advantage for Paxio is
that once a company is sold on the idea, it assists employees in
setting up access. It may be less costly for the provider to market
to relatively few companies than to many employees, and
doing so is more likely to ensure that the telecommuting links
actually get used.
Even Better Than Telecommuting:
Home-Based Businesses
Even when companies are skittish about letting their employees
work from home, fiber may give workers the opportunity
to cut their ties to the office and go into business for themselves
– eliminating the commute altogether, and adding to
the environmental savings. An RVA survey published in 2007
found that 10 percent of respondents were using their FTTH
connection to run a home-based business, with 90 percent of
these saying that having a high-bandwidth fiber optic connection
was either “very important” or “somewhat important” to
their business activities.
“There are some municipalities that are trying to use their
broadband to train people in promoting opportunities for inhome
businesses in their area, and the dollars that brings into
communities,” Render says. He notes that many smaller communities
have only one or two sources of outside income, such
as agriculture or a single factory. The rest of the local economy
simply circulates money already in the community, “from
laundromat to restaurant and back.”
“Economic development is a huge opportunity for these
rural communities,” Render adds. “Now you have people in
microbusinesses bringing in capital. RVA is a small business in
Tulsa, but we sell reports throughout the world. And we talk to
small consulting operations having national reach from rural
areas such as in Washington state, and others doing advanced
video editing, which really requires the bandwidth.”
Reducing Business and Health-Related Travel
Another prime target for energy savings is in the travel people
do while they’re on the job – whether that’s travel across town
or across the world.
Render notes that fiber-based communication makes it
easier for companies to grow without having to build new offices
or shuttle between offices. “We have come across cases in
some of these small towns where companies were buying VPN
services to make expansion easier,” he says. “If you have a sudden
50 percent growth, for instance, it is cheaper and faster to
rent space across town than to build an add-on structure next
to the existing workspace. And videoconferencing, from the
point of view of avoiding travel, even between buildings and
nearby towns, in addition to work from home, can be a big
time and energy saver.”
The flexibility this offers to fiber-connected businesses has
contributed to the continued strength of FTTH deployment in
rural areas. “We’re still collecting data from smaller LECs, but
I have not seen any real drop-off,” Render says. “I expect that
there will be more a leveling off rather than a decline in 2009.”
The public sector, as well as the private sector, is using fiber
connections to avoid local travel, Render adds, citing “new uses
such as video arraignment of people arrested – you get face-toface
interaction, judge to jail, without transporting a prisoner
to the courthouse.”
The use of videoconferencing and other Web-based collaboration
technologies to reduce long-distance travel in the era
of global business is only beginning, but it holds out enormous
30 | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproperties.com | January/February 2009