AT&T Doubtful It Can Meet Energy Star Version 4.0 Set-top Specification

Saying it might have reached the “limit of [energy] consumption reductions it can realistically achieve” without affecting “consumer experience,” AT&T proposed two changes to the Energy Star set-top box specification the telco said would help get service provider participation. The EPA is revising the set-top box specification and has put out a draft with changes to the rules for service providers. Only four providers, including AT&T and DirecTV, have participated in the Energy Star program for set-top boxes since its debut in 2008.

The proposed box specification provides energy allowances for whole-home boxes, recognizing that home entertainment is shifting from reliance on independent devices toward a model in which a central set-top box serves multiple remote boxes, both with streaming and recorded content, AT&T said. The specification impose “static consumption requirements” for each server and remote box, it said. There'll be a higher participation if service providers are allowed to achieve compliance by meeting a “consumption goal” for all boxes deployed in the home, the company said. “We suggest that providers be allowed greater flexibility to allocate the already aggressive energy consumption goals for server and remote boxes among the various devices in a whole-home deployment."

AT&T’s IPTV boxes equipped with DVRs meet the proposed specifications but the non-DVR boxes fall short by a small margin, the company said. Power allowances for whole home deployments give the DVR boxes “significant headroom” yet provide “no help” to non-DVR boxes, it said. “This creates the counterproductive incentive for AT&T to deploy numerous Energy Star compliant DVR boxes in a single home, although that would substantially increase the home’s energy consumption,” the company said. It urged the EPA to allow aggregation of allowances for all boxes in the home.

The EPA could alternatively “rebalance” the allowances for server and remote boxes, AT&T said. Moving some power allowance from the DVR or so-called multi-room adders to the base allowance would let AT&T’s DVR and non-DVR boxes qualify, it said. “Indeed, a modest rebalancing along these lines might even yield a slight net reduction in the allowable average energy consumption.” These “modest” changes, if adopted, would allow AT&T to continue participating in version 3.0 of the specification, it said. But it’s “highly unlikely that either AT&T’s server or remote IPTV would qualify under version 4.0,” the company said.

Calling the levels proposed in the specification “increasingly demanding” at a time when consumers are asking for boxes with “greater functionality,” the company said “this type of pressure” on IPTV box specifications “runs contrary” to the agency’s energy efficiency goals. “Energy Star targets should reflect what can practically be achieved, given current technology and time frames, without compromising customer experience,” it said.