Studying the potentials of physical asset management of hybrid base stations in telecommunication companies

Abstract

The importance of energy related topics has been increased during last years, and it will be in future for sure. In particular energy cost is estimated to increase; further on one of the hot topics today is also the global climate change, which is due to increased CO2 and other greenhouse gases emissions. To reduce these impacts decrease of usage of fossil fuels can be a proper lever, and can be obtained both by improving energy efficiency and by using renewable energy resources. On the other hand, focusing specifically in the Telecom sector by introduction of Android, iPhone, iPad, Kindle and social network such as Facebook, demand for cellular data traffic has grown significantly. Indeed, Base Transceiver Stations (BTS) consume a maximum portion of the total energy used in a cellular system (around 60%). Eventually, it is known that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) already represents about 2–2.5% of total carbon emissions and this is expected to increase every year. The most convenient ways to reduce energy consumption of BTS is usage of renewable energy sources (wind and sun).This is recognized by existing theory and practice. Available literature covers the performances of Hybrid Base Station (HBTS), site indicators, on one side, and, on the other side, the necessity of the Telecom Company to reduce energy consumption and GHG emission on sustainable way. These are the two extremes of this knowledge domain: more precisely, on one side, there is a literature related to the vendors of HBTS and, on the other side, there is literature dedicated to Telecom Companies as technology users. But there is no bond and, in fact, insufficient knowledge technology management. Indeed what we see as a missing link here is the availability of a clear information and design of the practical “guideline” for implementation of HBTS in a Telecom company. The literature of Physical Asset Management (PAM) offers good references for an empirical research to unveil such missing link. In particular, based on the holistic lifecycle approach, that is a relevant concept of PAM. We planned to develop an on field research with Telecom companies, to understand how the technology is managed in practice. On-going case study provided some insights to us during writing this paper. Hence, the research will aim at assessing every single step of HBTS implementation in a Telecom Company. This approach will cover all the Asset Life Cycle stages, ranging from Concept and Project Approval to Decommissioning and Disposal, so to let emerge existing practices in a broad range of activities. This paper will focus on the whole architecture established for the empirical research, focusing initially on the literature survey used as background, which may help then showing the structure of the questionnaire used for the research and its first results after an initial validation with Telecom experts.