Three winners named in 2008 Eckermann-TJA Alcatel-Lucent Broadband Challenge Awards

Senator Stephen Conroy congratulates winners for innovative thinking on tackling global challenge of environmental sustainability

Melbourne. - Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) in association with the Telecommunication Society of Australia (TSA) and the Australian Computer Society (ACS) has jointly honoured the authors of the three winning submissions for this year’s Eckermann-Telecommunications Journal of Australia (TJA) Alcatel-Lucent Broadband Environment Challenge awards at a ceremony in Melbourne. This year’s winners received personal congratulations from Senator Stephen Conroy, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, whose representative the Honourable Bill Shorten MP presided over the night’s proceedings.

The Alcatel-Lucent Broadband Environment Challenge recognises innovative work submitted to the TJAon how broadband technology can contribute toward environmental sustainability. The authors of the three winning papers will share the USD 10,000 Eckermann-TJA Prize.

This year’s winning papers demonstrated tangible environmental benefits, including the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions through grid-charged, electrically-powered passenger vehicles, improving water efficiency in irrigation and reducing energy consumption in mobile telecommunications networks. The joint winners of this year’s awards are:

* Syed K. Saleem and Byron Wicks (National ICT Australia) and Kithsiri B. Dassanayake (The University of Melbourne): “Broadband and the sustainable use of water resources”
* Mike Dennis and Bethany Thompson (The Australian National University): “Vehicle to grid using broadband communications”
* Holger Claussen and Lester T. W. Ho (Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, Swindon, UK) and Florian Pivit (Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, Dublin, Ireland): “Leveraging advances in mobile broadband technology to improve environmental sustainability”

“I want to congratulate this year’s winners for the contributions they made in our efforts to seek to better understand how we can use emerging technologies to help meet our sustainability goals,” said Senator Stephen Conroy. “The Broadband Challenge papers are a fine example of the deep thinking required to ensure we take the necessary action to exploit the digital technologies we have at our disposal.”

Last October individuals were invited to submit a 6,000-word paper to TJA containing original and unpublished work to be judged by an independent expert industry panel appointed by the TSA. Judging was based on the demonstrable environmental sustainability benefits that an existing broadband technology is delivering or proposed new uses of broadband telecommunications that could deliver significant benefits.

“We were all impressed and appreciative of the submissions made for this competition, and in particular of the three papers selected. Alcatel-Lucent takes its responsibilities as a global citizen seriously and we were proud to be associated with this initiative and that members of Bell Labs, our own R&D team, were among the winning submissions,” said Andrew Butterworth, Managing Director, Alcatel-Lucent Australia. “The Eckermann-TJA Broadband Challenge Awards and the innovative excellence they produce are a valuable step in providing some answers to what more we can do as an industry to address the serious issue of environmental sustainability.”

“Through technology and innovation, broadband will help to reduce Australia’s carbon footprint. Innovation in ICT and advances in technology are streamlining processes and are creating more energy efficient equipment,” said Kim Denham, Chief Executive Officer of the ACS, who also spoke at the event. “The ACS has been very active in promoting Green ICT and it was the first to reveal Australia’s ICT carbon footprint of 7.94 million tonnes (Mt) of carbon dioxide in 2005. ICT is very much part of the solution as the tool to help reduce emissions, not only within the ICT sector, but for all other sectors of the economy that rely on it. We would like to congratulate the winners of the 2008 Alcatel-Lucent Broadband Environment Challenge and we look forward to seeing the positive impact these innovations have on our environment.”

“As chair of the judging panel, I’m pleased to report that the results of the 2008 Alcatel-Lucent Broadband Environment Challenge were outstanding,” said Professor Peter Gerrand, Managing Editor of the Telecommunications Journal of Australia. “The panel assessed nine papers, all meritorious, from authors based in four countries, of which eight papers will be published in a special issue of the Telecommunications Journal of Australia in February 2009. Three of these papers were selected as the joint overall winners.”

Summary of winning papers

A short synopsis of the three joint winning entries follow. Full details of the winning papers can be found at http://www.epress.monash.edu/tja/about.html within TJA Vol.59 No.1.

Syed K. Saleem and Byron Wicks (National ICT Australia) and Kithsiri B. Dassanayake (The University of Melbourne): “Broadband and the sustainable use of water resources”

* Synopsis: This paper demonstrates how broadband networks can be used to greatly improve water use in agriculture, where water use efficiency is often less than 50 per cent. Results of recent trials have demonstrated an improvement in water productivity of 27 per cent in dairy farm applications and 74 per cent in increased water efficiency in horticultural applications.

Mike Dennis and Bethany Thompson (The Australian National University): “Vehicle to grid using broadband communications”

* Synopsis: The impending mass electrification of road transport, driven by concerns for climate change and sustainability, enables an opportunity to substantially reduce greenhouse emissions from passenger vehicles. This paper demonstrates that Vehicle to Grid (V2G) methodology, supported by broadband communications, offers sustainable transport solutions in Australia at reduced energy consumption and greenhouse emission levels.

Holger Claussen and Lester T. W. Ho (Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, Swindon, UK) and Florian Pivit (Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, Dublin, Ireland): “Leveraging advances in mobile broadband technology to improve environmental sustainability”

* Synopsis: Advances in mobile access broadband technology have a high potential to improve environmental sustainability. This paper shows how a joint deployment of macro- and pico-cells can reduce the total network energy consumption by up to 70 per cent in urban areas.

About the Eckermann-TJA Prize:
This is an annual competition initiated in 2007 by Robin Eckermann and the journal TJA to encourage publication of papers on the beneficial application of broadband to the environment. Alcatel Lucent is the sponsor of the USD 10,000 2008 Eckermann-TJA Prize competition.

About the Telecommunication Society of Australia (TSA) and its Journal TJA:
The TSA provides a meeting place for telecommunications professionals, promoting networking through all of the TSA’s activities, and informing the industry of new developments through its journal, the Telecommunications Journal of Australia (TJA). The TSA aims to facilitate an educated, competitive and growing industry built on Australian innovation and technology. The TSA has merged with the ACS to become the ACS-TSA - see www.tas.org.au/tsig.

About the Australian Computer Society (ACS)
The ACS (Australian Computer Society) is the recognised professional association for those working in Information and Communications Technology, seeking to raise the standing of ICT professionals and represent their views to government, industry and the community. A member of the Australian Council of Professions, the ACS is the guardian of professional ethics and standards in the ICT sector, committed to ensuring the beneficial use of ICT for all Australians. It provides both members and non-members with opportunities for professional education, networking and certification, as well as enabling them to contribute to the development of their profession. Visit external linkwww.acs.org.au for more.