Energy consumption in the italian mobile phones sector

The mobile phone market has experienced an exponential growth trend in the last ten years. Europe continues to be the main market in the developed countries, although in the last two years growth has witnessed a slow-down. Despite being already a mature market, Italy has a “penetration rate” (i.e., the number of active lines per 100 inhabitants) higher than 146, the highest in the European Union. Furthermore, in Italy about 70% of active lines use UMTS and HDSPA, the so-called 3G and 3,5G technologies, where G stands for Generation. It is important to point out that despite their higher power levels allowing faster data transmission and the use of increasingly complex services and software, these technological standards are high energy consuming. This scenario has suggested a study on the energy consumption of mobile phones and their associated equipment. The aim of the present article is to estimate the impact of this sector (including the so-called mobile network) on the Italian energy consumption