The mission greentouch

A famous group is working to prove that communicating info needn't produce so much carbon pollution
Worried about the sodden surroundings left by an energy craze world? Possibly you can feel good now. Bell Labs believes networks should only use 1,000th the energy they do today. GreenTouch, a global consortium organised by Bell Labs will create the technologies needed to make communications network more energy efficient. It believes it is possible to reduce energy in communicating information practically by 1,000 times.
By 2015, Bell Labs aims to demonstrate the key components needed to increase network efficiency. Members include China Mobile (the world's largest carrier), AT&T, Swisscom, Telefonica, MIT, Stanford, Freescale and Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology.
A thousand-fold reduction is roughly equivalent to being able to power the world's communications network, including the Internet, for three years using the same amount of energy that it currently takes to run them for a single day. With its launch, the consortium also has issued an open invitation to all members of the Information and Communication Technology community to join forces in reaching this ambitious target. The Green Touch Initiative shows how business can play its part in delivering a low carbon society.
GreenTouch began in mid-2009 when a group of Bell Labs scientists discussed the modern equivalent of Shannon's work - how much energy is needed to communicate information.
Bell Labs has a stunning reputation: its reaserchers have won, or shared in, seven Nobel prizes for physics. The most recent was in 2009, for semiconductor imaging. Today Bell Labs is the profit-oriented research operation of Alcatel-Lucent.