There is no great surprise in the finding by Nokia and Telefónica that 5G networks are up to 90% more energy efficient than legacy 4G networks per unit of traffic. That is not enough to offset the rise in traffic anticipated by even the most conservative forecasts, which is why both parties admit that more must be done to cut energy consumption over cellular networks. The research, conducted over three months, evaluated power consumption of the RAN for 4G and 5G traffic in Telefónica’s own network. In total, 11 predefined traffic load scenarios were analyzed, measuring energy consumed per-Mbps on the basis of how the load was distributed. The study utilized Nokia’s AirScale portfolio, including base stations and massive MIMO…