INDUSTRY INSIGHT
Switch to a greener future
With concerns about global warming and environmental sustainability on the rise, and high-profile initiatives like the Carbon Lobby, WEEE, RoHS, and the Kyoto Protocol gaining more headline space, we’re all becoming aware of the need to making our organisations leaner, cleaner, and greener.

Taking practical steps that make a significant change can be difficult. But the good news is, going green with 3Com could be good for your business as well as the environment – making the organisation work smarter and more efficiently.

Technologies like PoE (Power over Ethernet) and Gigabit Ethernet cut costs and accelerate network speeds, but they can also consume over six times more energy – increasing both your power expenditure and your carbon footprint.

That’s why 3Com has committed huge time and resource to developing technologies that not only need less power, but perform better as well.

3Com has modified its entire range of switches – the main driver for networking power – cutting energy consumption by as much as 78% over previous generations.

An inefficient power supply can cause the average computer to haemorrhage around 30-40% of the power it consumes. So 3Com now only uses supplies with greater than 80% efficiency under full load that support DC connections to dedicated power racks.

This, in turn has dramatically cut heat production and the number of cooling systems needed to control it. You can also specify a maximum power output to pare wastage down still further.

3Com products now incorporate 90nm (90 billionths of a meter) silicon transistor and processor technology too – boosting system speed by 35% while trimming the power need by 60%. A move to 65nm and then 45nm will cut this by a further 30%.

The results speak for themselves. By replacing 100 older, less power-efficient switch models with 100 of the ‘greener’ 3Com® Switch 4200Gs, your savings could equate to:

  • Lighting 62 homes for a year (77,890 kWh)1
  • 78% or $5,530 per year on electricity costs2
  • 56 fewer tons of CO2 entering the atmosphere3
  • Taking 10 cars off the road for a year4
  • Planting 15 acres of trees5

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1 Represents the number of homes that would be lit for a year by the energy savings that could be realized from a move to newer switches; based on EPA data indicating 1,250 kWh per year for lighting an average home.
2 Based upon $0.071c per kWh.
3 Presents the pounds of carbon dioxide from emissions of electricity generation avoided as a result of the energy savings achieved by the use of new switches; based on Energy Information Agency data and the conversion of 1.43 lbs. CO2 per kWh of electricity generation. (2,000 lbs. equals one ton)
4 Cars Off the Road represents the pounds of carbon dioxide from car emissions avoided; based on EPA data using the conversion of 11,560 lbs. CO2 emitted per year by one car.
5 Acres of Trees Planted represents acres of forest that would have to be planted to sequester the amount of carbon dioxide avoided due to energy savings from power management. Based upon a conversion of 7,333 lbs. CO2 sequestered per acre of trees. (Based on EPA data)