Optus and Ericsson have teamed up to reduce the energy consumption of Optus’ radio access network by implementing software solutions that adjust the radio activity according to the traffic demand.
The software tools are called Massive MIMO Sleep mode and Booster Carrier Sleep. They allow the radios to enter a low-power state when there is no or little traffic, saving up to 70 percent of the energy compared to when the radios are fully active.
The solutions have been trialled at sites in Sydney and Melbourne, the companies announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
They said that the software features, along with other network modernisation and enhancements done in 2023, could result in daily energy savings of 24 to 26 percent at radio sites.
“This is a significant step towards our sustainability goal of reducing our 2025 emissions by 25 percent from a 2015 baseline, while maintaining network quality and performance. We are grateful to Ericsson for their partnership and innovation in this area,” said Lambo Kanagaratnam, managing director of networks at Optus.
Optus outage impact revealed
The technology showcase came as Singtel released its financial results, which showed that Optus suffered a $61 million loss due to its November 2023 outage.
The outage, which lasted almost a full day, was caused by faulty router data from a peer that disconnected routers from Optus’ network.
Optus reported $1.8 billion in revenue for the third quarter of 2023-2024, which ended on December 31, a decrease from $1.9 billion in the same period last year.