Energy usage of mobile telephone services in Germany

As an example of a new communication technology that has reached a high penetration rate within only a few years, this article looks at the energy demand of mobile phone services in Germany. Mobile phone services combine two trends of modern communication technologies — mobility and connectivity. There have been some estimations of the energy usage of handsets in the past, but the energy usage of the network equipment, which makes the mobility possible, has not been analysed. In this analysis, the energy usage of mobile phones, including charging losses, is calculated using different customer profiles. Additionally, the amount of energy consumed by the network equipment is determined. The results show that the energy demand of mobile phone services is mainly caused by the operation of the network equipment and not by the handsets, even if the poor efficiencies of the charging processes are included in the calculations.