Today, at World Wi-Fi Day, we remind ourselves how Wi-Fi has played a transformative role in bridging the digital divide worldwide. Wi-Fi can also help save our planet. With its localized transmission, lower signal strength requirements, and power-saving features, it is a greener alternative to cellular and beneficial for the environment we all care about.

We all know that it is the relatively small initiatives that sum up to deliver a significant positive environmental impact. One of those initiatives is our new purpose-built database, released in Enea Aptilo SMP 5.6, which we have optimized for our platform. As we celebrate World Wi-Fi Day, we have received reports from some of our customers showing the extreme efficiency gains when going from a general-purpose database to our new database, which we have purpose-built for the telecom use case.

Less than half the number of Enea Aptilo SMP servers needed to perform the same job

One of our customers has reduced the number of server nodes from 10 to 4 while still performing the same job. Furthermore, each node also has significantly less memory and CPU utilization. This correlates well with stress tests in our labs, where we have simulated 16 million accounts with heavy database activity. The CPU utilization was down by a factor of ten going from 300% to 30% (Three cores running at 100% to one running at 30%).

It is fantastic and surprising how a few skilled software engineers can fundamentally impact energy consumption. And this is just in the daily operation of the machines. Add to this the energy and overall environmental cost of manufacturing and distributing twice as many servers.

We challenge our industry and all other industries to make the same effort. Together, we can help save our environment bit by bit, day by day, leaving a better world for our children.

Is the green agenda another reason for the sudden surge in interest in Wi-Fi offload?

In our recent blog post – Wi-Fi Offload 2.0 – Why a Surge in Interest Right Now? – we attributed the reason for operators’ increasing interest in Wi-Fi to the paradigm shifts in Wi-Fi technology and the urgent need for additional capacity and indoor coverage. But maybe there is also a green agenda behind this interest. With offloading, operators are saving costs on equipment and energy consumption. This means they can better fulfill their commitments to their Environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) agendas.

We are committed to ensuring that Wi-Fi and Cellular coexist to bring the best user experience and save the environment any way we can.