Environmentally friendly or sustainable business practices are an integral part of all industries, and the telecommunications industry is not immune. That's because companies committed to energy efficiency initiatives are popular with consumers and investors alike.
Frontier Communications, which is in the process of transitioning from an old-fashioned telecommunications company to a fiber-optic powerhouse, frequently expresses its commitment to sustainability during earnings calls with investors, and recently released its first environmental, social and governance (ESG) report.
In addition, John Stratton, Frontier's executive chairman of the board, emphasized the company's belief in the benefits of fiber during the company's third quarter 2021 earnings call. "Fiber is a passive technology that uses less energy than competing technologies such as cable," Stratton said. "As we upgrade our copper network to fiber, we will be on a path to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."
Fiber is often referred to as "passive" technology because it uses passive optical networking, or PON, technology and therefore does not require any electricity to power it. Instead, it uses a passive splitter.
Steve Alexander, Ciena's chief technology officer and senior vice president, said fiber can definitely be considered more environmentally friendly than cable because it has far more capacity than coaxial cable, and fiber has lower losses.
However, he also noted that the physical act of replacing copper with fiber optic connections will increase the carbon footprint. Upgrading copper wire to fiber is a one-time event, he said.
The Fiber Broadband Association's "State of Broadband in America 2022" report, produced by RVA Market Research and Consulting, also says fiber can reduce CO2 emissions because fiber optic service requires fewer door-to-door visits than copper or cable.
In addition, the report says that transmitting CO2 over fiber may save more because when it's deployed in communities, it means more people can work from home, which reduces the amount of energy used to commute.
But the FBA isn't the only organization touting the benefits of fiber optics. The European Commission looked at different broadband technologies in Germany and found that fiber was the most energy efficient. The study noted that at 50 Mbps, fiber-optic connections emit 1.7 tons of CO2 per year, compared to 2.7 tons per year for copper wires. The commission said the reason for the high efficiency of fiber optics is that it transmits data over much longer distances than copper wire, and copper connections require more amplifiers, which in turn require electricity.
