Nokia’s Broadband Zero campaign targets sustainability, inclusivity

Nokia is throwing its weight behind an initiative it calls Broadband Zero, aiming to help connect as many people as possible with a minimal impact on the environment. Sandy Motley, President of Fixed Networks at Nokia, said the company’s Broadband Zero campaign is based on four key pillars: zero left behind, zero limits, zero touch and zero waste. She explained the first pillar is focused on applying fiber and fixed wireless access (FWA) technologies to connect every home and building as quickly as possible. Though fiber is preferable as a long-term solution, she noted it “takes time” to deploy whereas FWA is “a fairly quick solution.” If an operator “has a wireless network, they can very quickly get a fixed wireless access CPE to some of their customers who can do a self-install and then within minutes, an hour of them purchasing the product they can have a good, strong broadband connection.” The second and third pillars – zero limits and zero touch – home in on network capabilities. Specifically, Motley said former is about enabling operators to introduce new technologies and innovations for their customers, while the latter aims to help service providers transition to fully automated and optimized networks. The final pillar, zero waste, encompasses “things we can do independent of operators going green and the grid going green…the packaging, optimizing the design of our products to consume less power, designing our products in such a way that we generate less waste and that they can be easily recycled” according to Fixed Networks CTO Stefaan Vanhastel.