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S. Aleksic:
"Towards a Future Highly Energy-Efficient Global Communication Network: A System Perspective";
Keynote Lecture: IEEE Croatia Section, Communication Chapter, Zagreb, Croatia (invited); 11-12-2013.

The information and communication technology (ICT) sector is continuously growing due to the fast penetration of ICT into many areas of business and society. The impressive evolution of ICT is accompanied by fast increase of the ICT energy and carbon footprint. Therefore, energy efficiency is gaining more and more importance. Indeed, a lot of effort has recently been put into research and development of energy-efficient devices, systems and networks. However, operational energy consumption is only one of several factors that influence the sustainability of the ICT sector. Other factors that can even play a more significant role are resource consumption associated with production, transportation and disposal of ICT devices, indirect effects that result from the use of software applications and ICT services, and systemic effects that emerge from the medium or long-term changes of behavior.

This talk discusses methods for improving energy efficiency in communication networks and presents a holistic approach that combines network modeling with widely applicable thermodynamic tools to analyze information, energy and entropy flows in order to assess the sustainability of ICT infrastructure.

Information and Communication Technologies, Energy Efficiency, Sustainability