Brussels, 6 June 2011 – Not all digital television offers are the same in terms of how much electricity they consume. According to a study carried out by researchers from the ULB (Université Libre de Bruxelles), the Starpack solution from Mobistar, which combines digital interactive television, Internet and fixed line telephony, uses between 26% and 47% less energy than similar products from Belgacom, VOO and Telenet. An appreciable difference, both for the portfolio and the planet!
This Sunday 5th June was World Environment Day. A perfect occasion for Mobistar to unveil the results of a study carried out by the ‘Faculté Polytechnique’ of the ULB on electricity consumption by “packs” combining digital interactive television, broadband Internet and fixed line telephony. The figures are surprising: calculated on a yearly basis, Mobistar’s Starpack solution consumes 26% less electricity than the equivalent product from Belgacom, 33% less than the VOO solution and even up to 47% less than the one from Telenet! Better still, the Mobistar solution was shown to perform best in all the cases studied: even when looking only at digital interactive television or at TV and Internet, Mobistar comes out strongly ahead in comparison to its principal competitors.
Of course when we say energy savings that means, quite simply, savings. Based on an electricity cost of 0.2 € per kWh (all taxes included), the Starpack solution enables Mobistar consumers to save 13 euros per year compared to Belgacom customers, 18 euros compared to VOO customers and even 33 euros compared to Telenet customers!
We should point out that the ULB study is based on a usage profile that is as realistic as possible, that is to say an Internet modem permanently switched on (with Wifi activated) and a decoder used on average 3 hours per day (during the rest of the day it is on standby). The researchers also took into account that users record some of their favourite programmes (on average one recording per week) and that they watch some of these in high definition, both of which functionalities have an impact on users’ electricity consumption.
For Mobistar, these results are very encouraging because there’s still much room for improvement. In the coming months, Mobistar intends to activate the “ecomode” function on its decoders. This new functionality, which will notably put decoders on a deep standby after a few minutes of inactivity (as most PCs already do), should bring with it a further reduction in electricity consumption, and therefore also a reduction in users’ bills. This will enable Mobistar to conform even more closely to the European Union code of practice relating to the energy consumption of digital TV services.
The goal to reduce Starpack’s electricity consumption fits perfectly with Mobistar’s ambitious CSR (corporate social responsibility) program: by 2020, the company wants to lower its carbon footprint by 50%.
Much quicker start-up
As well as being the most economical, the Starpack solution also proves to be the fastest on the market. If we compare the start-up times of the various “packs”, Mobistar once more comes out clearly ahead.
Comparison of the start-up times :
1 Necessary time to watch a TV channel
2. Necessary time to also have access to the menus and interactive services
With a start-up time “from cold” (that is to say starting from equipment completely switched off) of less than a minute, Mobistar does slightly better than VOO and much better than Telenet and Belgacom. When we look at integrated access to all the menus and services offered by interactive digital TV, the Belgacom start-up time is even more than 10 minutes, more than 10 times more than with Mobistar Digital TV. A simple example: a Mobistar Digital TV user who comes home from a weekend at the seaside and sits in his/her armchair to watch television spends ten times less time waiting for access to his/her digital TV services than a Belgacom TV customer. An enormous difference in terms of ease of use!