Why the telecoms industry needs an energy aware OSS

Sustainability remains high on the telecoms industry's agenda. But if telcos are to effectively measure, monitor, analyze and address network power efficiency then operations support systems (OSS) need to become more energy aware, according to Laurent Leboucher, Orange’s Group CTO and Senior Vice President Orange Innovation Networks in a Q&A with TM Forum's Inform.

When it comes to energy awareness, what does the telecoms industry need from OSS that isn’t available today?

The telecoms industry needs OSS that can provide real-time energy-related data with the ability to monitor and analyze energy usage across the entire network, identify areas of inefficiency, and provide recommendations for improvement. There is a need for real-time alerts regarding anomalous energy usage and energy management capabilities. Interoperability with existing energy management systems will also be critical in order to provide a comprehensive view of energy usage across the entire network.

What are the challenges of making OSS more energy aware?

The lack of standardization of energy counters and data-sharing API definitions is an issue. OSS systems (Element Management Systems) are typically developed by different vendors and are not designed to be interoperable.

Another challenge is the lack of embedded energy metering for all products. Today, we have systematically embedded energy counters on new RAN equipment but it is just starting for fixed and technical environment equipment. Old OSS systems are often complex and difficult to modify, making it difficult to add energy-related features. OSS applications on top of element management systems also need to take into account energy consumption KPIs to provide an end-to-end operations data analysis which can take into account fault, performance and energy management, then convert this information into insights for automated or manual actions to optimize, remediate and to keep the contractual quality of service to customers while optimizing energy consumption (for example, dynamic shut-down of unused elements during low-traffic situations.).

With the introduction of new sources of data from each fixed and radio site, and with the intention to implement AI-based methodologies to recommend energy consumption optimizations, the processing capacity of the OSS will be challenged and the platforms designed for such activities must be well dimensioned to absorb the complexity of the task.

How is Orange working to make its own OSS more aware of the energy consumed by operations, including the network?

Orange is working to make our own OSS more aware of energy by implementing an Energy Management Information System with the following capabilities:

• Automatic collection of many heterogeneous energy-related data including energy invoices, energy embedded counters and smart metering from different vendors
• Provision of a comprehensive view of energy consumption and Opex
• Use of AI & data analytics to identify areas of energy inefficiency and provide recommendation of improvement

Why is it important for the industry to have a shared definition and standardization of energy aware OSS?

We need to ensure that the OSS is designed and implemented in a way that is consistent with industry best practices (GSMA’s MEE - Mobile Energy Efficiency - KPIs) as this will allow for better communication and understanding between different OSS and systems, and will also help to foster an ecosystem capable of proposing vendor agnostic solutions to act on energy consumption.