Reduce the environmental impact of home networks

Georges Ouffoué, operational pilot and sustainable IT referent for Lab-by-APL, participated in the development of this white paper, "Sustainability of the Home LAN," written by Benjamin Schwarz, a consultant at CTOi Consulting, in partnership with Orange, Broadpeak, Sagemcom, and SoftAtHome.

The observation is unequivocal: for Orange France, the consumption of Internet boxes and decoders amounts to 100 kWh/year, representing:

• Double the consumption of the operator's IP network;
• 10% of Orange France's total carbon emissions.

Regarding short- and longer-term actions to reduce the environmental footprint of home networks, this white paper suggests several avenues:

• Standby mode accounts for 77% of the total consumption of home network devices. An improvement in standby mode, equipped with more intelligence through the development of more efficient middlewares, combined with user awareness, would reduce energy consumption by 10% to 20%, without requiring significant investments.
• For future boxes and decoders, the use of latest-generation electronic components and the implementation of SoC architectures are recommended, as they are adapted for better support of low-power modes.
• WiFi offloading, or the optimization of cloud and local resources for storage and computing operations.