FiOS Energy Consumption - Energy Star?
mjkboston
Enthusiast - Level 1

I just got FiOS installed. Went incredibly smoothly, my network swapped right over from Comcast and the HD picture is spectacular. 

Here's the rub.  I replaced

one Comcast Moto STB and a TiVo Series 2 DVR, Moto Cable Modem & Netgear Wifi router

with

FiOS Moto STD STB and  FiOS Moto HD DVR plus two digital converters, Verizon Actiontec  MI424WR Wireless Router and FiOS Tellabs 612 indoor ONT.

I was doing some work with an energy management startup and had an Energy Detective (http://www.theenergydetective.com/index.html) installed in my load panel to monitor my power consumption and immediately noticed my power use go up.  Seems from posts on DSL Reports (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18599695?hilite=ont+612+power+consumption) that the ONT draws 20-40 watts and the Router draws a whopping 60 watts continuously.

I wonder when these companies are going to start waking up to the fact that broadband, DVRs and HDTVs (not to mention Wiis and XBoxes) are a major contributor to the country's increased power consumption and carbon footprint. We should all be demanding higher efficiency electronics. Verizon gets the services revenue and the triple play is a good deal for $99 bucks but we get to pay and extra $10 per month to power their gear! 

Has anyone heard of Verizon or Moto's plans for EnergyStar compliant STB's???

Re: FiOS Energy Consumption - Energy Star?
Kathleen
VZ Employee Emeritus

Excellent question, mjkboston.  Unfortunately, I do not have an answer for that question.  I'll have to look into here at Verizon and find out.  Stay tuned...

Regards,

Kathleen

Verizon Forums Team Administrator 

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Re: FiOS Energy Consumption - Energy Star?
Techman28
Master - Level 1

I'm going to toss this around and see who can answer this question and I'll reply later in the afternoon

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Re: FiOS Energy Consumption - Energy Star?
dttuner
Newbie

What happened to receiving an answer to this thread "this afternoon?" It's been almost a month since we've heard from Verizon on this issue.

The power consumption levels of your equipment is unacceptable, and Verizon needs to provide it's customer's with an environmentally sound solution ASAP.

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Re: FiOS Energy Consumption - Energy Star?
Techman28
Master - Level 1

I have been asking around and don't have any exact #'s to give but this post has not been forgotten.

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Re: FiOS Energy Consumption - Energy Star?
FranG
Enthusiast - Level 2

I'm glad I fournd this thread  and am not the only one concerned about energy conservation.

My electric bill has also increased since FIOS.

Even with the power "off",  I can hear the DVR box processing something.  Is there a low power setting that I can't find.

  

I would like to shut off electricity to the DVR, the STB's, and the modem when not in use.  I do this with my computer nightly.  Also,  I don't like to have my modem up all night.

Will this cause a problem with any of the settings?

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Re: FiOS Energy Consumption - Energy Star?
Techman28
Master - Level 1

I'm just curious how everyone is talking about energy consumption which is great but how is the affecting your electric bills. Is it greatly or just a small amount. Also Turning off the power to the equipment shouldn't affect your box.

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Re: FiOS Energy Consumption - Energy Star?
Pyao
Contributor - Level 1

Your DVR would need to be consuming electricity for scheduled programming.   If you don't need to record then you could unplug it.

I guess you can power off the router when not in use.

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Re: FiOS Energy Consumption - Energy Star?
MeatChicken1
Contributor - Level 2

The DVR Drive is always spinning & recording the channels, even when the box is "off", 24/7,  & even if  there is nothing set to record.

 To test this, you can go to, say, ch 600 & shut the box "off" with nothing recording.... Come back an hour or 5 hours later, turn the box on, hit rewind, & you will see that you can rewind back into the times that the box was "off", meaning the channel has been constantly recording to the drive.

  There should be an "advanced" setting where people can choose for many of these power hungry "off" modes to be truly shut "off".

 This would save both electricity/costs, & wear & tear on the box/drive.  Functions such as keeping the time & record scheduling do not take much power, it's the drive constantly recording & 2 tuners being on all the time eating the electricity....

Message Edited by MeatChicken on 12-31-2008 01:34 PM
Message Edited by MeatChicken on 12-31-2008 02:00 PM
Re: FiOS Energy Consumption - Energy Star?
tsk
Enthusiast - Level 3

I'd like to start first by pointing out that this is a perfect case of where one should not believe everything they read, especially on the internet.  DSLR is indeed a generally trusted forum with a large number of very helpful participants, however this does not imply that everything posted there should be taken as gospel.

I would extend this note further to my posting here - there is absolutely no reason anyone should blindly take my word as-is without doing their own research to confirm or refute this information.

The first thing I did when I saw the referenced post about the Actiontec MI424WR consuming 60 watts (which I thought was absurd) was to check the router and its powersupply for ratings.  The power brick on my Rev D is rated for an output of a whopping 15 watts.  That is only a quarter of what the DSLR post notes, and if the router did in fact try to consume 60 watts the power brick likely would not survive.

Next, I plugged the router into my WattsUp Pro (similar to a Kill-a-Watt) and noted that it was using about 13.2 watts consistently with the wireless radio disabled.  When I enabled the wireless this went up by less than anoher half watt (13.6).  For any home user with broadband internet access, a router should be standard equipment and if wireless is used then a wireless access point would be required regardless.  Essentially the point here is that at least in my case the MI424WR wouldn't add to my household power consumption over any other broadband internet service.

Next, I moved on to the PS/BBU/ONT.  I too have an indoor 612 (but mounted in the environmental outdoor enclosure despite it being indoor). 

  • I measured around 15 watts "idle", but noted that it would occasionally rise to about 16.2 watts for short periods then drop down to 14.8-15.4 again. 
  • After allowing the ONT to run on battery for a while (20 minutes) I noted that consumption moved up by 11.6  watts and slowly went down after a while, presumably as the battery was nearing full charge again.  I didn't allow the battery to discharge significantly, however it is possible that a deeper discharge would result in a higher charging rate but I would not expect it to be considerably higher (charging a sealed lead-acid battery too rapidly is not a good idea).  If anyone has specs on the charging rate, or how long it takes to fully charge a drained battery it would be relatively easy to calculate the actual increase here, but since this is a rare event I wouldn't include it as being relevant to this discussion.  This would also be seen as initial "consumption" but in fact is simply energy storage for later use.
  • When using my phone, I noted power consumption increased by about 1.2 watts.  This was the same with both my self-powered remote phones as well as my basic plain-vanilla line-powered phone, used primarily during power outages.
  • With incoming calls (phone ringing), I noiced a negligible increase (perhaps just .1 watts).  This was likely due to the fact that my phones all have electronic ringers and so would draw very little current.

  

As a side point, I had previously validated the readings on my WattsUp Pro using my Fluke 189/410 combination so I can trust the readings are reasonably accurate.

For mjkboston - did you happen to take note of the power consumption of your original Motorola Cable Modem and Netgear wireless router?  If combined they used less than about 30 watts then in my home I would have higher power costs after switching to FiOS.  However, your experience may be different.  Just because you see an increased household usage based on readings from your Energy Detective does not mean it is due entirely to FiOS.  This is why I like portable units like a Kill-A-Watt or WattsUp, since they allow me to determine actual usage of specific devices.  On a month-month basis, I regularly see my household usage vary considerably (based on my utility statements) even when I haven't apparently done anything different.

For Kathleen, Techman28, and the other Verizon reps that come around here:  Something that would be helpful is for Verizon to post or otherwise make available the expected/rated power consumption of the equipment placed at the resident, including the PSU, BBU, ONT, and wireless router.  Every customer must agree and sign the Terms-of-Service which includes a note that the customer is responsible for providing power to these devices, but it does not provide any guidance on what to expect.