This Tuesday, the Senate hosted a round table around 5G where members of Arcep, Ademe, operators and associations were able to discuss the potential risks of the new network on the environment.
5G could pollute more by adding antennas while retaining the current 2G and 3G networks
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In recent weeks, public interventions are becoming more numerous about potential risks of 5G for the environment. While the Senate has published a report aimed in particular at prohibiting unlimited data and that Arcep now wishes to be able to control the carbon footprint of operators, the subject was on the table this Friday.
In fact, the High Planning and Sustainable Development Committee of the High Assembly organized a round table between different actors on the subject. The opportunity to lay the foundations of a subject to say the least complex.
No moratorium on 5G before frequency allocation
It must be said that on June 25, the Citizens’ Climate Convention submitted a report of 150 ecological proposals to the government. Of these 150 proposals, Emmanuel Macron decided to bring 146, but rejected four others, including a moratorium for 5G. The executive therefore insists that the 5G frequency allocations in France be maintained for the end of September, a calendar long established with Arcep and repeatedly postponed.
A difficult position to hold for Stéphen Kerckhove, director general of the Agir pour l’Environnement association, which has filed an appeal with the Council of State in order to postpone the date of allocation of frequencies: “We like that the conclusions are not written in advance. I do not see the meaning of granting frequencies between September 20 and 30 regardless of the conclusions of the reports ”. It must be said that by then, many reports must be submitted and several administrative authorities must assess the potential effects of 5G on the environment. This is particularly the case for Arcep, in collaboration with Ademe, the energy transition agency. “This report submitted at the end of the year will be an opportunity to make proposals. We will have to ask ourselves the question of measures so that we can monitor, encourage and coerce operators ”, said Sébastien Soriano. Mathieu Weill, head of the digital economy service at the Ministry of the Economy, said that the government has already delved into the subject of the environmental impact of digital:
At the request of the government, the National Digital Council must submit a report on the subject in the coming days. A referral from Arcep and Adem is in preparation on the impact of the networks.
Greener, but faster infrastructures
Despite the proposals of the Citizen Climate Convention, there is therefore no question of postponing the 5G calendar. However, it seems that many questions arise about the environmental implications of the new generation of mobile networks. The first is the consumption of infrastructure itself. According to Hugues Ferreboeuf, director of the working group « Lean – ICT » of think-tank The Shift Project, the risk is to see an explosion in operators’ energy expenditure in the years to come. It even provides for a “Increase in operators’ energy expenditure by 2 or 2.5 in a few years if it is a question of having the same geographic coverage in 5G as in 4G”.
In addition to the higher consumption of 5G antennas – which will consume 3 times more electricity than a 4G antenna according to Orange and Bouygues, for 15 times faster – the question that arises is also that of the sustainability of previous networks. “We will add equipment and antennas. The consumption of existing networks is not eliminated. You would think that 2G should disappear one day. We should also talk about dismantling 2G ”, asks Hugues Ferreboeuf. A proposal to which Sébastien Soriano, president of Arcep, says he is open:
Yes we can turn off 2G and 3G. This is a subject on which we must work with the sector. Perhaps rather 3G since many of our fellow citizens use 2G devices to connect to the network
A future increase in uses
In addition to the infrastructures themselves, the other risk posed by 5G is the increase in usage, with more data consumed while 4K, then 8K will be more accessible, just like gaming. streaming or virtual reality. An upcoming explosion in Internet video consumption that also worries the Agir pour l’Environnement association: “5G is streaming, the autonomous car, the Internet of Things. We are on the verge of an explosion in data communications ”. It must be said that this data already represents 80% of the content consulted on the Internet and that it could increase further. Above all, they are particularly energy-consuming, especially for storing files in data centers. However, it should be noted that despite increasingly heavy content over the past 20 years, data centers have kept their electricity consumption stable.
# Parlons5G Here I give some curves on the explosion in speed / traffic in the telecom networks in recent years and the concomitant evolution of CO2 emissions from the sector. Look forward to deepening that with finer and more complete data! https://t.co/AxxkxzEpX8 pic.twitter.com/lZQhMIhjim
— Sébastien Soriano (@sorianotech) June 30, 2020
Finally, the last question addressed by the participants in the round table concerns the subject of terminals, and therefore in particular smartphones. There too, the different members were worried about what Hugues Ferreboeuf describes as“Felt obsolescence” by users, while 4G phones will not be 5G compatible. He is particularly concerned that consumers will throw away their old smartphones to rush towards compatible models. If Nicolas Guérin, president of the French Telecoms Federation and secretary general of Orange, wants to be reassuring, arguing that “44% of the digital footprint is due to the manufacturing of terminals and the network”, against 56% of uses, and that “Operators are trying to work on eco-responsible phones and are working on recycling terminals”, that did not convince Stéphen Kerckhove to act for the environment: “Laptops are recycled at around 10% and we can’t get beyond it”.
Arcep wants operators to have ecological control
For the time being, the operators and the executive therefore intend to make forced progress towards the allocation of 5G frequencies, regardless of the opinions given in the coming months by the National Digital Council or Ademe and Arcep. On the side of the telecom gendarme, Sébastien Soriano nevertheless wished to recall the ambition of the authority he presides, namely to move from control of competition, regional planning and net neutrality to control operators’ environment: “We are a regulator who can work with this market to bring a certain requirement”. An appeal that has been heard by senators who will be invited to vote soon to provide Arcep with the tools to encourage, monitor and impose ecological constraints on mobile operators, particularly on 5G.
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