The rapid rise of consumer and commercial use of the internet has led to an expanding and seemingly unrelenting appetite for speed. This has significant environment and energy ramifications that will only increase as large population cultures such as China and India join the net. Little research or study has been completed around the energy and environmental impact of bringing significant populations to the internet. There are a large and varied range of technologies proposed for these which attempt to address the wide geographic dispersion faced by the populations.  Technologies such as DSL, WIMAX, FTTH (Fibre to the home) are all touted as possible ways to meet high speed demand. Little consideration is given to the environmental impact and whether there are more efficient and less energy-hungry means to achieving the same goal.

In some European countries, the incumbent service provider company consumes more than 2 TW-hours (2,000,000 MW-hours) of energy. As energy costs have more than doubled in the past five years in some of these countries, the service provider has reason for concern when technologies are implemented in the network that raise the power requirement by more than a factor of two as is the case where one migrates from ADSL2 to VDSL2.

To give this some perspective, a service provider with 6 million ADSL subscribers drawing 9,600 kW-hours (6 million x 1.6 W) of energy at 6p per kW-hour faces a cost of about £406,000 per month or £5M per year. This does not include the increased need for air conditioning.

For the world's more than 220 million DSL subscribers, service providers have to deliver about 352 MW of power. This power requirement has an energy impact which translates into an enormous environmental carbon footprint. The energy consumed at the service provider to power the world's 220 million DSL subscribers contributes over 1,500,000,000 lbs of carbon dioxide to the environment yearly. This figure is equivalent to the burning of 79,000,000 gallons of petrol or the carbon dioxide contribution of 441,000 homes over the course of a year.

The feasibility study will examine ways in which energy related to internet use and service distribution in the home may be monitored and reduced or modulated over time, based on capacity requirements, services and usage patterns. It will examine and suggest ways in which different delivery mechanisms and technologies may be mixed or introduced to achieve Government targets for Digital Britain under the Universal Service Commitment of “at least 2Mbs to the home”

The IAB will be producing a report that highlights the different technologies, their environmental impact, energy consumption and suitability for delivery of the service commitment and creative content emerging within the UK. It will also attempt to determine a range of energy demands of the population as the percentage of online users increase.