Vodafone UK aims to achieve a “zero traffic, zero watt” scenario in its radio access network, ultimately seeking to limit its ecological footprint by ensuring that its networks do not consume energy when there is no traffic and the telco is also investigating the best use of AI and big data to increase energy efficiency.

Lee Jones, Senior Director of Energy at Vodafone UK, explained that Vodafone UK’s energy bill this year is “horrendous”, reaching between £150 and £160 million, which has driven the telco to seek new ways to cut its energy use.

The latter highlighted Vodafone UK’s use of AI and big data, with the operator owning numerous telecoms exchanges, data centres and around 11,000 radio base stations and offices, which combined add up to a lot of data points and metadata. Finally, he stressed that Vodafone is using “every tool we can to drive change in an energy budget”.