Can you guess what industry lays claim to that energy consumption stat? It’s the telecom industry, specifically the 16,000 legacy TDM (time-division multiplexing) phone switches in the U.S. and Canada, which account for 15 terawatts of juice yearly or “roughly 0.4% of all electricity used in those two countries,” according to of Access Venture Partners’ David M. Gold.

The environmental cost of this connectivity: “over 8 trillion tons of carbon emitted every year.” Such is the cost of voice communications, right? It doesn’t have to be, says Gold. Much like data centers are slimming down — from an energy consumptions standpoint, mind you — telecoms can also substantially slash their power requirements and CO2 emissions.

Access Venture Partners-backed startup Aztek Networks makes IP-based switches for telephone companies that lower energy consumption by up to 90 percent. To sweeten the deal, its tech can be deployed incrementally, incurs lower maintenance costs and is physically smaller to boot. And the ROI on Aztek’s switches could prove alluring enough to prevent companies from embarking on network overlays, says Gold.

“The overall payback on the technology can be as little as one year.  And without Aztek’s technology, telecom companies would not be able to move as fast to replace TDM switches because of the complexities and costs of doing complete network overlays.”

Financial and environmental benefits? Yes, please! Read more at David M. Gold’s blog.

[via Vertatique on Twitter: @GreenICT]

Image credit: Aztek Technologies