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IEEE Seeks For Ethernet To 'Go Green'
alphadogg submitted a piece at the NetworkWorld site about the IEEE's efforts to introduce energy efficiency to Ethernet use. The group's Energy Efficient Ethernet group is looking into methods by which standards can be tweaked to encourage power savings. Current plans include ways to make computers 'choosier' about what level of bandwidth they're using. Idle systems would only run at 10Mbps, while email might draw 100Mbs, and scale up to 1000Mbps for large downloads and streaming video. The group is planning to discuss changes to the Ethernet link and higher layers. No restrictions are planned for device manufacturers, although the article suggests some companies might try to use energy efficiency as a competitive advantage. The EEE group estimates some $450 million a year could be saved via the use of energy efficient Ethernet technology.
One of the easiest ways that the Ethernet people could encourage energy efficiency would be by promoting greater use of Power Over Ethernet. By moving networked devices away from each having an individual wall wart, which are typically inefficient (as well as inconvenient), PoE lets you concentrate the AC to DC conversion in one place, for greater efficiency. As long as you don't have terribly long cable runs, I think there would be a significant net savings overall.
The number of networked devices people are going to have in their homes is only going to grow. I think a big segment could be in "Micro NAS" devices, basically single HD boxes that plug in to a home network and add storage that's accessible from any computer in the home. They're smaller and cheaper than RAIDed NAS solutions, but more convenient for people who have multiple computers than a FireWire or USB2.0 hard drive. And then you have routers, WiFi APs, network cameras, set-top-boxes for playing back video and audio, etc. All of those light-draw devices could be powered over the network connection instead of each having a wall wart.
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Another suggestion - Stop all the spamming. There must be a coal-powered powerplant's worth of electricity right there.
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Does 100 (or 1000) really take that much power to download one "file", or is it the same amount of power used, just in a shorter time period?
Or is it power used while idle? Does a 1000 device comsume more power idling in that mode than a 10 device would?
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