1. Fiber for a greener future
(SUDEFIB) Committee
Joannes De Wilde FTTH Council Europe
Amsterdam CUD 23 september 2008

2. Sustainable Development and FTTH
Broadband usage is an opportunity for sustainable development
FTTH is maximizing the offer for new services w/ minimum materials
& maintenance
How FTTH participate to sustainable development taking into account
networks sourcing, implementation, consumption, recycling?
Our mission: Quantify the Sustainable Development Impact of FTTH
solutions looking at various European cases

3. Tele-presence: A good Busi…Home

4. FTTH is creating a new environment
More Less
• Teleworking • Life constraints & stress
• Video-conference • Inefficiencies of services
• Medicine, healthcare • Intense operations
• Governance • Infrastructures/transport
• Education • Environmental changes
• P2P, exchanges • Collective costs
• Video surveillance, etc.
• Business
• Personal
• Family benefits
• Societal
• Local enhancement

5. Study Introduction
• Information society network are providing solutions for heavy energy
consumptions sectors, such as transport and building sectors
• FTTH networks bring environmental benefits in many fields. The present
study focuses specifically on the areas of teleworking and telemedicine
• FFTH solutions provide higher bandwidth than all other broadband
solutions. The project compares the environmental impact of a network to
these associated benefits
• The use of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to illustrate this comparison was
made by PricewaterhouseCoopers to generate the necessary quantitative
data
This work has been done according to ISO 14040 standard

6. Hypothesis
• Data sources and modeling were mainly provided by the FTTH Council
SUDEFIB (Sustainable Development Fiber) Committee
Data are weighted as European average
• FTTH network deployment
– 3 scenarios were considered for the calculation: urban dense, urban wide and
rural areas.
– 4 types of deployment techniques are considered (existing ducts or urban
sewage, traditional trench, micro-trench, aerial hanging)
– The life span of the FTTH passive infrastructures was chosen as 50 years
• Selected benefits
– Teleworking, telemedicine and home assistance are assessed
– Telemedicine looked up three cases: teledialysis, telemedical meetings and
medical imaging transfer
– From the current trends (2010-2011) in FTTH networks use, we have chosen the
following percentage
- 10% of the working population could telework 3 days per week
- 20% of the population 75 years old and over could benefit from home
assistance

7. Example of a technique modelling
Ready-mixed 63 m3 3 MJ Light fuel oil
concrete
(Blowing machine
consumption)
130 m2 1000 m
Road bitumen Outdoor optical
fiber cable
1 km of
micro-trench
1605 L
116 kg
Diesel oil
Polyethylene (HDPE) (Civil works engine
consumption )

8. http://www.ecobilan.com

9. Analysis of results & main outcomes
• As a main quantitative finding, the environmental impact of the deployment
of a typical FTTH network will be positive in less than 10 years considering
only the three selected services
• The use of the network (power consumption) represents only 6% of the total
impact
• Additional either existing or developing applications will further emphasize
these results
• Beyond its environmental-friendly aspects, FTTH solutions offer additional
social and economical benefits

10. Depreciation of FFTH network (in years)
Total Primary Energy
12.0
10.0
Depletion of abiotic
Human Toxicity 8.0
b
6.0 resources
4.0
2.0
0.0
Eutrophication Greenhouse effect
Photo-oxidant
Air Acidification
formation
* For a deployment scenario made of 60% in urban dense
areas, 30% in urban wide areas and 10% in rural areas
• Years (0.0 – 12.0) represents the depreciation of the FTTH Network.
• quot;Total impact of fiber network implementationquot; takes into account full life
cycle including production of passive and active equipments, transport,
implementation, power consumption and end of life.
• quot;Environmental savingsquot; are represented by one of teleworking, home
assistance and the three telemedicine case studies.

11. Relative contributions of the different FFTH network deployment
phases to climate change potential impacts
4. Passive fiber
network
deployment
78%
5. Network
power
consumption
3. Transport 6%
0%
1. Cable and
passive 6. End of life
2. Active 1%
equipment
equipements
production
production
7%
8%
• Regarding the potential greenhouse gas impact, the deployment phase is
predominant and represents approximately 80% of the total impact of FTTH
network
• In particular, the key impacting parameter over the carbon emissions is the
length of new ducts (meters) per home passed

12. Normation
• If we consider only the projection of FTTH number of user according to
IDATE (20 millions for 2015)
for the first 10 years of network implementation, greenhouse gas emission
savings per user are of 250 kg approximately. This is equivalent to a car
travelling 1 700 kilometers. For the next 10 years ....
• Consequently, sustainability of FTTH solutions will be demonstrated if:
– user experience is growing
– bottlenecks such as network access are removed
• The present study considers an overall approach of FTTH alternative
networks and associated services. In particular, it considers PON and Point
to Point configurations using aggregated data

13. Other contributions
FTTH can contribute to other fields not assessed in the present study (see
also DG JRC report quot;The future impact of ICTs on environmental
sustainabilityquot;)
• Energy demand
• Supply chain management
• E-commerce
• Tele-meetings
• Dematerialized products and services
• Intelligent transport systems
• Facility management
• Production progress management
• Improve service and product utilization

14. Conclusion
• This study is based on European inputs. An eco-design approach can be adopted on a
case by case basis. The scope can be extended to other geographical contexts (US and
Asia through local FTTH Councils work) or to specific local deployments
• FTTH network solutions represent a responsible investment for:
– Operators
– Public bodies
– Shareholders
– Utilities
• FTTH networks provide decisive leverage to policy makers
“FTTH networks enable society changes for a sustainable future”…
just imagine!