How to help end-users make more sustainable use of telecoms

According to Boston Consulting Group, the ICT (Information and Communications Technology) industry has slipped by, largely unnoticed, in terms of its environmental impact but is starting to gain attention, as the industry accounts for 3-4% of global CO2 emissions. This is especially evident as global data traffic is projected to increase 60% annually.

Within the ICT industry, telcos contribute 1.6% of global CO2 emissions. Telco leaders are taking notice and increasing their focus on carbon reduction opportunities. Major telcos have committed to energy reduction per unit of traffic by 70% by 2030 – an amount that would contribute to the ICT’s overall goal of driving a 15% reduction in ALL global emissions within the same time period.

While operators can make some impact by improving the energy efficiency of smartphones, wearables and cell sites, nearly 90% of their carbon emissions are generated indirectly, through their supply chains and other industries they support.

Telcos can lead the charge in reducing their environmental footprint by: implementing 5G, driving eSIM adoption, leveraging Wi-Fi, cloud adoption, and customer education - to reduce the carbon footprint.

Bouygues’ Source - a digital brand with a sustainable focus

Bouygues reached out to triPica to help them develop their new brand, “Source,” an eco-friendly digital telco proposition. Their goal was to launch a socially responsible, customer-empowered, 100% new digital brand that encourages “digital sobriety.” This brand targets customers who want a socially responsible solution that works within their increasingly digital lifestyle.

Bouygues’ Source helps its customers minimize their daily carbon footprint by giving them a full transparency as to their data consumption, including the mix between cellular and Wi-Fi. Customers can convert each unconsumed gigabit of data into “waterdrops” contributions towards NGO’s that drive social and environmentally-friendly initiatives.

5G improvements

5G networks are already twice as efficient as 4G, with 5G still in its infancy.

5G brings MIMO antennas that dramatically improve the opportunities for energy savings. They transmit signals as “beams” individually to a communicating mobile device rather than 4G’s version of blasting over a wide area. MIMO antennas also concentrate their power amplifiers at the antenna’s radome that allow for beam management, optimizing the network and further reducing power consumption.

5G also introduces “sleep mode,” where a cell site can shut down transmissions as traffic levels drop. The first level, already implemented in 4G involved turning off the power amplifier, generating a 20% reduction in energy use. 5G goes to “level 3” which enables an even greater 50% cut in power consumption.

With the increased throughput of 5G over 4G technology, and further network optimization, energy savings per gigabit are expected to improve over 4G by 10X by 2025 and 20X by 2030.

While this is good news for the mobile base station and network side of the energy use equation, additional energy savings can be gained when we look at integration with the user side. In developing the Source digital app, 5G network advances were accommodated but this was not the core focus.

SIM to eSIM Transition

SIM cards were once the standard for every smartphone. But increasingly operators are transitioning towards eSIM for the flexibility and improved customer experience. Through 2020, 175 mobile carriers launched commercial eSIM services for smart phones across 69 countries.

While this move has largely been driven by business customers with multiple phone numbers on a single device, increasingly operators are coming to understand the environmental benefits that this change unlocks.

What is the environmental impact of a shift from a physical plastic SIM card into an eSIM world? The production of a single SIM card adds 5kg of CO2 to the environment. With 4.35 billion SIM cards manufactured in 2021, over 560,000 tons of CO2 and 18,000 tons of plastic were produced.

This extensive SIM supply chain includes raw materials, transportation to the manufacturing facility, SIM manufacturing, transportation to the MNO warehouse, transportation again to the sales location/store, and finally the customer must travel to the store to pick up the device with the physical SIM card to have it configured. That goes away with eSIM.

triPica developed a digital platform for Source that leveraged eSIM technology, allowing for flexible, easy signup and account administration, that is a hallmark of eSIM and also cut out the CO2 that would have been generated by not needing a physical SIM card.

Offloading to Wi-Fi

Connecting to Wi-Fi can often be the best solution for preserving battery life and, as a result, minimize electrical grid usage. An evaluation of mobile (GSM) vs Wi-Fi energy usage showed significant reductions using Wi-Fi, especially for videos (88.82% increased energy use on GSM vs Wi-Fi), where many people spend their time on their mobile phone.

Multiple technologies (3G/4G/5G) are accessed through the smartphone simultaneously. Each technology has its own spectrum allocation and requires a separate connection to the mobile device. Splitting functions (call, text, data) between technologies means more battery use to keep all of that going.

Switching between call/text and data use, along with driving, that requires cell site to cell site handoffs between to stay connected, use more power. And communicating with a far-away site can also drain your battery quickly.

But relying on individual users to figure out when to change over from the cellular system to Wi-Fi to minimize power usage, without a system to prompt users, is ineffective at best.

triPica overcame that issue when working with Source by giving users full transparency into their data consumption, including the mix between cellular and Wi-Fi. With this dashboard view, and an incentive system that rewards customers for reducing mobile data use (which ultimately reduces energy use for phone battery recharging), customers became more actively engaged and shut off their mobile connection when Wi-Fi was available.

Carbon Savings in the Cloud

Many operators are heavily dependent on legacy hardware that is often energy inefficient. But purchasing all new in-house equipment can often exceed the available budget. Transitioning to the cloud can often be the answer, especially when driving a shift from physical SIM cards to eSIM technology.

Cloud-based processing systems like AWS (instead of an enterprise-based solution) can boost carbon emission savings. With Source Bouygues saw the following benefits:

• 61% of carbon reduction due to using more efficient servers and increased server utilization
• 11% of reduction is attributable to more efficient data center facilities
• 17% of savings comes from lower electricity consumption and increased use of renewables

User Control Through Information and Education tied to a Sustainability

Bouygues “telco in an app” puts the user at the controls. In particular, Source promotes “digital sobriety” by capping gigs of mobile data in the plan. Users are incentivized to cut back on their data usage. The dashboard allows them to see who many gigs they have left. Users can then either cut back on their data usage or wait until they are able to connect onto Wi-Fi, where their data usage is not counted towards the plan.

Real-time, paperless, intuitive sign-up, contract management, billing and timely customer support are the norm today. Bouygues was able to use a solution that integrated with multiple external systems, providing a seamless end-to-end digital experience to telco users as well as a 360-view of the customers to the supporting agents.

“triPica quickly grasped our vision for customer empowerment and was able to transform it into an innovative customer-centric solution, seamlessly integrated with our network and developed in under five months.” - Stéphane Allaire, Chief Innovation at Bouygues Telecom

triPica’s “Source” Development Highlights

The innovative solution addressed each key requirement of Bouygues Telecom while utilizing triPica’s vast expertise in pulling all the technical elements together quickly and seamlessly.

• Leveraged triPica’s telecom expertise, market research, and best practices to deliver a test model within 8 weeks from initial idea (something that would normally take months of development).
• Integrated with Lilo, a green search engine, to enable conversion of unconsumed gigabit data into “waterdrops” contributions towards NGOs.
• Incorporated a greenfield blueprint (covering functionality from front-end customer experience to full BSS platform with easy network integration) to deliver a production-ready system in under 5 months.
• Utilized its partner arrangements to develop eKYC integration that enabled user verification identity checks within seconds, directly from their mobile app.
• Used a SaaS Cloud based platform to deploy a fresh instance in just hours, ready for integration into the operator`s network, while ensuring maximum security.
• Smoothly integrated into Bouygues existing technology stack.
• Developed quickly and efficiently using Agile processes. Skipping traditional Tier 1 processes by going via Bouygues’ MVNE access was a true differentiator in ensuring speed and quality.
• Implemented a story-telling design approach with UX design managed centrally by triPica, but in close collaboration with Bouygues’ brand and marketing teams. Multiple workshops were held to go over 170 screens, focusing on the user journey using a friendly tone - from the telco user’s point of view.

The result was an innovative self-service 100% digital journey for their users that accomplished Bouygues’ core objectives of: Eco-awareness (via education and data consumption transparency); Eco-acting (facilitating donations of non-consumed gigabits to NGOs); and Eco-technology (SaaS based lean platform based on TM Forum standards).

Telco technology is evolving at light speed. Sustainability, green initiatives, and carbon emissions reductions are now possible with shifts from plastic SIM cards towards eSIM solutions as well as increasingly energy-optimized cloud processing options. triPica is at the forefront of these innovations.

triPica was a nominee for the 2022 Excellence Award at TM Forum's DTW (Digital Transformation World) in Copenhagen in the Sustainability category this month, based on their work with Bouygues Telecom.

Lear more here about how TM Forum supports its members in enabling sustainability impact across the telecoms industry.