Nortel Buzzboard

The big news that came out yesterday from Verizon is that VZW is buying Alltel in a deal valued at $28.1 billion. But completely crushed underneath the weight of that big news was another announcement that Verizon made yesterday. While it didn’t have the glamor of a multi-billion dollar acquisition, Verizon’s other release should be of interest to this blog’s readers, as well as the equipment vendors that sell to Verizon.

Yesterday, Verizon announced that it had provided the manufacturers of certain equipment a “target” for getting 20 percent greater efficiency than today’s gear does by January 1, 2009.

For those of you without a calendar, that’s just over 6 months away.

To do this, Verizon said that it had established its own energy-consumption standards and an associated measurement process to apply it to certain new broadband, video, data-center, network and customer-premises equipment starting in 2009.

Verizon says it costs “hundreds of millions of dollars annually” to power their network, and one part of their plan towards greater energy efficiency is to “request our suppliers’ help in meeting our conservation goals.”What equipment exactly? Verizon’s press release says that “Equipment to be tested and rated includes optical and video transport systems, switches and routers, DSLAM high-speed internet equipment and optical line termination gear, as well as switching power systems, data center servers and power adapters that operate customer equipment.”

So why the need to introduce their own standards and a deadline to push vendors to adopt it? In this article by Telephony Magazine, Verizon’s Chuck Graff says that the standards process is too slow: “There really isn’t any specific requirements for energy consumption and heat dissipation - there are objectives in Telcordia requirements but not standards. We sit on the ATIS team that is looking at this, we chaired it last year, and the committee is looking at it but the standards process is very slow.”

Verizon says it costs “hundreds of millions of dollars annually” to power their network, and one part of their plan towards greater energy efficiency is to “request our suppliers’ help in meeting our conservation goals.”

My first reaction when reading this news: if you’re a vendor and you’re not already all over the energy efficiency topic then you are in trouble. Six months is a lifetime in the Web 2.0 world, but not in the world of carrier-class equipment where some products take years to develop.

Of course, the 20% target and Jan 1 deadline don’t look to be etched in stone — in the Telephony article, Verizon’s Garr says they will “evaluate where our vendors are in a year and decide whether 20% is reasonable, based on the feedback we are going to get. We think these are doable numbers if they put their effort towards that.”

The moral of the story - if you’re an equipment vendor then energy efficiency better be at the top of your list during product development. If it isn’t, it’s looking more likely that enterprises and carriers won’t be willing to work with you.

What do you think, is Verizon’s new 20% guideline fair, or asking to much of vendors? And while we’re on the topic, watch this video from Global Connect — where I talked with Nortel’s John Gray about energy efficiency, including the best way to measure and compare EE between products.