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ATIS joins ETSI with wireless efficiency measurement – standards war on the way?

Tony Chan | July 21, 2010 | 0 Comments

The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solution, or ATIS, says it will soon announce a standard methodology for measuring the efficiency of wireless base stations.

The news comes just weeks after ETSI, or the Europe Telecommunications Standards Institute, announced a similar standard of measurement called, Energy Efficiency of Wireless Access Networks.

Similarly, the ATIS, through its Sustainability in Telecom: Energy and Protection Committee (STEP), will soon complete its Methodology for Measure and Reporting of Wireless Base Station Standard.

According to the ATIS, the new standard, one of a suite of Telecommunications Energy Efficiency Ratio (TEER) standards, will provide “a set of definitions, requirements and guidelines for calculating the appropriate radio base station (RBS) metrics for wireless access network configuration products.” In practice, these metrics address service provider needs by allowing them to compare different RBS’ throughput per watt, and allow comparisons between the total power consumed by RBSs during peak performance periods, ATIS said.

This standard will enable fair, consistent and repeatable evaluations of vendors’ products and drive radio networks towards sustainable, low-cost, energy-efficient solutions.

“These energy efficiency metrics will provide unambiguous measurement sets, thus enabling an objective energy efficiency comparison between different vendors’ radio base stations,” said AT&T’s John Messina, STEP-Telecommunications Energy Efficiency Subcommittee Chair.

At this point, it’s difficult to say whether this is some sort of a standards battle on either side of the Atlantic. The methodologies do sound quite familiar, with ETSI also looking to measure energy consumption of equipment, and power consumption at different traffic loads. At the same time, many of the vendors would have no doubt contributed to both standards process.

For the record, ATIS’ STEP committee is comprised of a host of communications companies and government agencies, including ADTRAN Inc, Alcatel-Lucent, ASSIA Inc., AT&T, Bourns, Brocade Communications Systems, Burndy LLC, CSI Telecommunications, Inc., CIENA Corporation, Cisco Systems, Corning Cable Systems, Department of Commerce, ECI Telecom Incorporated, Ericsson Incorporated, Fujitsu America Inc., Genband, Huwei, Ikanos Communications, Intel, Intertek, Juniper Networks, National Technical Systems (NTS), NEC America, Nokia Siemens Networks, NTS, Oracle America, Inc, Qwest, Rogers Wireless Inc., Southwest Research Institute, Stanford University, Telcordia Technologies, Tellabs, Thomas & Betts Corporation, Underwriters Laboratories, Inc, Verizon Communications, and Zarlink Semiconductor.