Comcast said its broadband network is 36% more energy efficient than it was just four years ago.
The top U.S. wireline broadband provider said it consumed 21.2 kilowatt hours of electrical power to deliver a terabyte of data in 2019, but reduced that to just 13.6 KWh per TB in 2022.
“Ongoing investments in innovation, software, AI, and other virtual and physical critical infrastructure require less hardware, less space and less energy per byte than previous technologies,” Comcast said.
Last year, Comcast announced plans to double network energy efficiency by 2030, cutting the electricity per consumed byte of data in half. Comcast estimates this will avoid the equivalent amount of electricity needed to power half a million homes for a year.
Comcast has set a goal to be carbon-neutral by 2035 for Scope 1 and 2 emissions, or the direct and indirect emissions it owns and controls, across its global operations.
Charlie Herrin, president the Technology, Product and Experience organization within Comcast Cable, said his group is “energized by the progress we’ve made on the path to a greener, cleaner internet.” He that the efficiency gains are a big part of Comcast's ongoing 10G network technology upgrade, much of which involves virtualizing legacy energy-hungry legacy appliances into software functions. ■
