Dish Networks' ViP722: Leaving on a 60-watt bulb 24 hours a day uses just a tad more than the ludicrous power consumption of this set top box: 55W while active and 52W while in standby.

The average pay television subscriber is spending at least $4 a month in hidden electricity costs thanks to the small set top boxes found on top of many television sets across North America.  That’s more than you are paying to run a modern refrigerator.

That stunning revelation comes from a study by the Natural Resources Defense Council, financed by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Costs for residents in the northeastern United States, where electricity rates are often higher, can reach $10 per month for customers with a DVR in the living room and a traditional set top box in the bedroom.  That’s up to $120 a year in hidden charges.

The pay television industry, which has driven the set top box into millions of homes, has never paid much attention to energy consumption of their equipment, if only because they don’t pay the power bills of their customers.  The NRDC found that many boxes even attempt to fool consumers into believing they are running in a reduced-power mode, by programming them to slightly dim the front clock when the box’s “power button” is switched off.

In reality, most set top boxes use nearly as much power “shut off” as they use left on.

The cost of these little power demons to North America’s power grid exceeds 18 billion kilowatt hours. More than seven power plants could not sustain that level of power, even if running 24/7 every day of the year.  The combined electric use of Alberta and British Columbia in a year would still not match the power consumption of every set top box in North America.

These revelations have led the U.S. Department of Energy to lay the groundwork to regulate the power consumption of set top equipment.  Once again, the United States would be a follower.  Europe cracked down on excessive power consumption of electronic equipment years earlier.  In the United Kingdom, for example, satellite providers include a box that can achieve a standby status that only consumes a handful of watts.  The trade-off is that consumers have to wait up to 90 seconds for the box to re-boot every morning when the television is first switched on.  Consumers have the ability to choose different power states as a menu option on the devices.

Some cable operators program their DVR boxes to spin down internal hard drives overnight, assuming no recording is scheduled at those times.  But many of these initiatives were designed to spare the longevity of the hard drive, not reduce power consumption overall.

Popular Science dug through the data and uncovered the best reasonable options subscribers have for boxes that at least snort their way onto your monthly utility bill, as opposed to pigging out at the trough (your wallet):

If You Have Comcast

In terms of energy efficiency, Comcast comes out as the lesser of several evils, but not by much. Comcast’s most energy-efficient boxes tend to be slightly more efficient than their equivalents at Verizon, Time Warner, and the satellite companies, and they also offer more choices in terms of hardware. The NRDC’s data picks the Motorola DCH70 as the best standard-def box (sucking down 10W while active, and 10W while on standby), the Pace RNG110 as the best high-def box (13W active, 12W standby), and the Motorola DCX3400 as the best HD/DVR (29W active, 28W standby).

I spoke to a Comcast representative who told me that typically, the company installs whichever box they want, but that if you request a specific box that they have in stock, they’ll happily install that one for you. They won’t order you a box from elsewhere, and this kind of hardware rotates in and out of availability fairly quickly, but at least you might have the option to choose.

If You Have Verizon FiOS

Verizon’s most efficient boxes are just okay, while its least efficient are some of the worst of any surveyed. Even worse, Verizon gives the customer absolutely no option about which box they get–you can’t request a specific box at any point. That doesn’t matter too much for the non-DVR boxes, as the NRDC’s findings only turned up one standard-def and one high-def box, but there’s a big gap in efficiency between the company’s best and worst DVRs. The most efficient is Motorola’s QIP7216, at an unremarkably 29W active and 28W standby, but the older Motorola QIP6416 clocks in at a lousy 36W active and 35W standby.

If You Have Time Warner Cable

Time Warner has a smaller selection of set-top boxes than either Verizon or Comcast, with only one averagely (in)efficient DVR and one startlingly inefficient standard-def box. For a high-def, non-DVR box, the Cisco Explorer 4250HDC is the most efficient, at 19W active and 18W standby, but Time Warner told me that that’s an older box that might be tough to find. The Time Warner rep was (surprisingly, given the company’s lousy reputation here in New York) quite helpful, and offered to try to track down one of the 4250HDCs if that was what I wanted.

If You Have DirecTV

Here we get to the satellite folks. DirecTV’s offerings are only slightly less efficient than Comcast’s or Verizon’s, with the (currently only) standard-def box coming in at 12W active, 9W standby, the best HD box (the DirecTV H24) at 16W active, 15W standby, and the best HD/DVR (the DirecTV HR24) at 31W active, 31W standby. The DVR is pretty lousy, efficiency-wise, but that’s nothing compared to the Dish Network’s craziness.

If You Have Dish Network

I don’t know what is happening inside the Dish Network’s DVRs. Given the energy usage, they might well be powering nuclear reactors. The “best” DVR Dish offers, the ViP922, uses 43W while active, and 40W while in standby–but the worst one, the ViP722, uses a ridiculous 55W while active and 52W while in standby.

If You Use Internet Video Streaming

Many are ditching traditional cable services for online services like Netflix and Hulu, and luckily, there are a whole bunch of gadgets that can play that content (and more) on a TV. They are also invariably more efficient than a cable box, to a startling degree. The Apple TV (reviewed here), which streams Netflix and plays music, movies, and TV from Apple’s iTunes store, uses a mere 3W while active and 0.5W while in standby. Roku‘s XR-HD, which streams Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Instant Video, and a whole bunch more, uses only 7W while active and another 7W while in standby. The Boxee Box, a curiously shaped media streamer that uses the open-source, ultra-powerful Boxee software, can play Netflix, stream video from other computers on its network, play media from a hard drive or thumb drive plugged into one of its USB ports, and stream from lots of apps (with Hulu hopefully to come soon). It was tested by an Ars Technica commenter whose measurements probably differ from the NRDC’s, but roughly estimates that it uses 13W while active and 13W while in standby.

[flv width=”640″ height=”388″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CBC TV boxes guzzle power 6-27-11.flv[/flv]

CBC TV took a closer look at the pay television set top box: a real power guzzler.  (2 minutes)

Phillip Dampier

While North American ISP’s call 3Mbps DSL “revolutionary” for rural America and dream of Internet Overcharging schemes like usage caps and consumption billing everywhere else, Australia is poised to take broadband to a level North America can only imagine.  Watch this documentary on Australia’s fiber-based National Broadband Network future and how it will transform their economy and culture, and then ponder what your Internet Service Provider is doing these days.

While we scratch our heads wondering how to wire West Virginia for slow speed DSL, Australia is planning to rip out copper wire networks everywhere.  While we fight over communities trying to get their citizens 21st century broadband speeds from community-owned providers private companies want to ban, Australia will deliver the same fiber speeds to 90 percent of the country, whether it’s ‘economically viable’ (to investors) or not.  As we watch a handful of giant telecom companies try to mess with broadband pricing to further increase their profits without delivering any improvements in service, Australia is going to rid itself of artificial limits on broadband usage.

But Australia’s NBN goes much farther than just delivering fast broadband.  It builds a foundation to transform virtually every aspect of Australian life:

• Rural Australia’s economic viability is guaranteed a future with the availability of fast and reliable broadband for businesses large and small;
• Telemedicine means patients seeking routine care and follow-ups can conduct them from the comfort of their own homes;
• Telecommuting means less energy consumption, less traffic, and reduced costs in roadway maintenance as workers do their jobs away from the office without wasting precious time in traffic;
• Telelearning provides rural students with access to the same high quality education city students receive, and ongoing education can be managed anytime, anywhere, even for those with existing jobs and families;
• Australian businesses can reach new customers across the world, increasing sales, whether they sell a digital product or one that leverages online shipping and tracking tools to complete delivery anywhere;
• Millions of Australians will have access to the same high speed broadband, delivering a platform for the development of large-scale, next generation applications that don’t make sense in countries where broadband is a patchwork of speeds, service, and basic availability.
• It means a broadband network so far advanced above that found across North America, it could change Australia’s standing in global commerce, and impact our own.

Embarrassed yet?  Worried about America and Canada becoming broadband followers instead of leaders?

You should be.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Australia’s NBN June 2011.flv[/flv]

Australia’s National Broadband Network  (38 minutes)

Bright House Networks, a cable company primarily serving Florida and other southeastern states says it has no plans to implement Internet Overcharging schemes like usage caps or consumption billing.  But a company spokesperson went even farther, telling Tampa Bay Online the cable company was not even considering them.

Bright House, which relies on Time Warner Cable’s programming negotiators and sells broadband under the Road Runner brand, was among the only companies in Florida that was willing to go on record stating they were not considering limiting broadband customers.

Other providers were unwilling to follow Bright House’s lead:

• AT&T: “2 percent of our customers were using 20 percent of our bandwidth,” said an AT&T spokesman, so the company slapped 150GB usage limits on DSL customers, 250GB on U-verse customers.  The overlimit fee is $10 for every 50GB extra.
• Verizon Florida: “At this point, we’ve not implemented any usage controls or broadband caps.  We’ll continue to evaluate what’s best to ensure our customers get the highest quality broadband service for the best value,” the company said.  But it also added: “We’re continuing to evaluate usage-based pricing for our wireline broadband customers.”

“Bandwidth caps stifle consumer choice,” said Parul Desai, public policy counsel for Consumer’s Union.  Desai notes customers do not sign up for pricey high-speed FiOS broadband service from companies like Verizon just to read e-mail.  Customers who are willing to pay premium prices for super high speeds certainly don’t want a usage cap devaluing their broadband package.

Comcast, for example, uniformly limits consumption to 250GB per month, even on high speed plans delivering over 50Mbps service.

“It’s like building a rocket that you blow up after it reaches 250 feet into the air,” says Stop the Cap! reader Will in Tampa, who shared the article with us.  “What is the point of having 50 or 100Mbps service from any provider if they slap a limit on it like that.”

Will thinks customers will abandon higher speed packages in droves once they realize they really can’t use them.

“With some of these companies talking about caps around 40GB per month, you can’t even take your connection for a test drive,” he says.  “You might as well stick with basic speeds, just to remind and discourage you from putting yourself over their stupid limits.”

Desai suspects broadband companies will try limiting their customers, if only because they face few competitors consumers can use instead and they have video services to protect.  But she suspects some consumers will either abandon or seriously downgrade their broadband service and find other ways to trade large files and content.

“It’s not inevitable they’re going to succeed,” she told TBO. “People only find value in broadband because of what they can access with it. If more people feel constrained, they’ll start looking for another way.”

Verizon Wireless will end its unlimited data smartphone plan on July 6th, pushing future customers to choose usage tiers priced at $30 for 2GB, $50 for 5GB, or $80 for 10GB.  But existing customers with either 3G or 4G phones can keep their existing unlimited data plans indefinitely, according to leaked Verizon memos.

Droid Life has become information central about the end of unlimited data at Verizon, thanks to some good connections with employees willing to share internal company memos.  They’ve learned Verizon also plans to make some other price adjustments effective July 7th:

Tethering pricing (in addition to your existing data plan, charged separately):

• 2GB — $20/month
• 4GB – $50/month
• 7GB – $70/month
• 12GB – $100/month

Overlimit fee: $10 per gigabyte.

Tablet plan pricing changes: Delete $20-1GB tablet plan, replaced July 7th with a $30-2GB plan.

From a Verizon memo to employees:

Data Pricing Evolution…The Present
Our legacy data pricing structure was designed to address a somewhat different customer need profile than what we are seeing and can expect in the future.

Consider this. Data usage has more than doubled over the last three years. Consumers and business users alike are doing more and more with their mobile devices. The notion of “send and end” has migrated to “managing multiple aspects of one’s lifestyle through mobility.” Whether it’s social media (85%+ of Smartphone users), mobile internet (88%+ of Smartphone users), or email/applications (71%+ of Smartphone users), this usage has one thing in common—dramatically increased demand for data and media consumption.

As a result, we are evolving our approach around how we package our data solutions and pricing to our customers. Coming soon, Verizon Wireless will move from our existing pricing format to a structure designed to allow customers to choose the right data solution that best aligns with their needs.

The Value Benefit Equation…
With the new usage based pricing plans, the vast majority of our customers will be able to enjoy their typical level of data consumption for the same value that they outlay today. Additionally, for those who have greater requirements for data, we will have solutions that they can tailor to their unique needs.

Perhaps more importantly, given our strong desire to continue to provide enhanced capability and value to our customers, the new data pricing will apply to both our 3G AND 4G LTE networks. So in essence, for those customers in our ever and rapidly expanding 4G LTE network coverage footprint, users will gain the benefit of the fastest and most advanced 4G LTE network in the U.S. all for the same usage based value. More speed. More functionality. Same value.

When Verizon first spoke about AT&T ending its unlimited use plans, we noted company officials seemed hesitant to sign on to AT&T’s specific pricing model.  We interpreted that to mean AT&T was being too stingy in Verizon’s eyes.  Stupid us. Instead, Verizon is going to charge $5 more than AT&T for most of its data plans, presumably milking its much-better reputation for service and reliability.

The existing price for Verizon’s unlimited smartphone data plan is $29.99 per month.  After July 7th, one penny more buys you only 2GB on Verizon’s network.

Customers can lock in unlimited data if they sign up for service before the end of the day on July 6th.  All existing customers who want to keep their unlimited data plan can, apparently even when changing phones, for the foreseeable future.  But nothing is forever with AT&T or Verizon.  We suspect “forever” will expire when average smartphone data usage approaches the 2GB limit their future $30 plan will feature.  Currently, the vast majority of smartphone users consume less than 750MB of data per month.

Netflix continues to get a lesson on broadband economics from the Internet Service Providers out to scare their customers away from spending too much time watching the company’s online streaming service.  As some Canadian ISPs lowered usage caps in response to Netflix’s imminent arrival, the video streaming service just announced it was letting customers turn down the bit rate of online videos to conserve their monthly usage allowance.

Neil Hunt, Netflix Chief Product Officer, told customers about the bit rate reduction in a company blog post:

Starting today, watching movies and TV shows streaming from Netflix will use 2/3 less data on average, with minimal impact to video quality.

Now Canadians can watch 30 hours of streaming from Netflix in a month that will consume only 9 GBytes of data, well below most data caps.

We made these changes because many Canadian Internet service providers unfortunately enforce monthly caps on the total amount of data consumed.

In the past, viewing 30 hours of Netflix could consume as much as 70 GBytes, if it was all in HD, and typically about 30 GBytes. While there is some lessening of picture quality with these new settings, the experience continues to be great.

Video compression reduces data consumption, but also sacrifices video quality and enjoyment. An example of high video compression on the left can be more than noticeable.

Unfortunately for Hunt, providers can continue to lower data caps to the point where Netflix would have to present their video library as a slideshow to keep customers under their limits.

Stop the Cap! responded directly to Hunt imploring Netflix to get involved in the battle that consumers have thus far fought alone:

While some customers appreciate Netflix for turning down the video bitrates, I am here to tell you it’s not nearly enough.

For nearly three years, our consumer group — Stop the Cap! has fought Internet Overcharging schemes in both Canada and the United States.

Whether it’s Bell’s proposal to eliminate flat rate broadband across all of Canada, Time Warner’s 2009 pricing experiment to limit broadband users to just 40GB of usage per month, or AT&T’s 150-250GB cap taking effect this spring, your competitors are on a mission to scare customers away from using your online video streaming service.

[…] The fact is, Netflix MUST engage in this fight. Consumers cannot do it alone, especially when up against billion dollar companies spending millions on lobbyists trying to convince lawmakers usage caps are about “fairness” when they are really about monetizing broadband traffic and scaring off cord-cutting.