Markdown Version | Session Recording
Session Date/Time: 24 Jul 2024 15:00
# eimpact
## Summary
This session focused on the environmental impact of networking technologies, covering a range of topics from over-provisioning and congestion control to climate resilience and energy proportionality. The discussions highlighted the need to move beyond simply increasing capacity and to consider the end-to-end impact of network design and operation on energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
## Key Discussion Points
* **Over-provisioning:** The initial presentation questioned the sustainability of continually rolling out more capacity, especially in scenarios where applications don't fully utilize existing bandwidth. The discussion explored whether it's more sustainable to enable quality of service or traffic engineering features rather than deploying more hardware.
* **Energy Efficiency vs. Capacity:** Participants debated whether hardware upgrades driven by market demand for higher capacity are always beneficial, considering the energy efficiency gains from newer equipment. The importance of life cycle assessment was emphasized.
* **5G and User Experience:** There was discussion around whether the average user actually experiences a significant benefit from 5G in well-connected areas. The point was made that 5G and other network upgrades often support more users rather than significantly increasing bandwidth per user.
* **Energy Proportionality:** A major theme was the importance of energy proportionality, where energy consumption scales more closely with network utilization. Participants discussed how to achieve better energy proportionality in network hardware and software.
* **Access vs. Core Networks:** Several participants noted the need to differentiate between access, aggregation, and core networks when assessing energy usage and the potential for optimization. Access networks often have higher oversubscription rates.
* **Climate Resilience:** The discussion expanded to consider the broader issue of climate resilience, including how to adapt the internet to withstand extreme weather events and rising sea levels. This included community networks and human resilience.
* **Metrics for Carbon and Energy:** The session identified a need for consistent metrics for energy consumption and carbon emissions, facilitating comparison and accountability. The conversation included a need to bring operations and carbon metrics closer together.
* **Link Utilization:** One presentation included empirical data from real ISP networks to show that average link utilization is often low, suggesting potential for energy savings through link shutdown or other techniques.
* **Hardware vs. Software Solutions:** There was a lively debate on the role of hardware and software in addressing energy efficiency. It was noted that better utilization of existing hardware is important, as well as new hardware that uses less energy.
* **Multicast Traffic:** Someone suggested the role of multicast traffic on energy and privacy, and that there could be opportunity to study.
* **Traffic engineering** One participant suggest traffic engineering to route around hot links.
## Decisions and Action Items
* Michael to consider writing an email to the mailing list.
* Rolf offered to send something to the mailing list about his research on multicast.
## Next Steps
* Continue the discussion on the mailing list.
* Consider scheduling virtual meetings off the IETF cycle.
* Explore topics for future discussion.
* Dan, Warren to explore potential discussion group at IETF or Mops.