Cable
TV could be costing you a small fortune. And no, we're not talking
about the monthly bill from your local TV service provider. Instead, the
high-cost culprits are the boxes that operate your cable or satellite
television service.
The Los Angeles Times
recently detailed the dire news about the high cost of running cable
and satellite boxes, and it could cause you to rethink how you watch
your favorite TV shows. Plain and simple, online streaming could save
you some money. For now, anyway.
The
Times article reveals that there are 224 million cable and satellite
boxes currently running across the nation, and together they consume as
much electricity as the power produced by four giant nuclear reactors
that run around the clock. That's a lot of electricity! In fact, the
cable or satellite box, which can consume as much as 35 watts of power
on standby, lands in the No. 2 spot on the list of home energy hogs, behind only air-conditioning units. (Desktop computers and accessories also run while you sleep, but they use a fraction of the energy that a cable box does.)
Perhaps
the most disturbing part of this story is that switching your box to
the "off" switch doesn't do much to save energy. Set-top boxes use
nearly as much power when they're powered off as they do when they're
turned on due to spinning hard drives and updates to program guides and
software. And if you decide to get around that by unplugging the box
before bed each night, the reboot will cost you more bucks in the
morning.
A
spokesman for the National Cable & Telecommunications Association
said that by 2017 the majority of set-top boxes are expected to meet a
more energy-efficient standard set by the government. (Eleven cable and
satellite companies signed the deal, which aims to reduce power usage by
10 to 45 percent.) However, the current situation definitely makes a
case for saving energy by ditching your DVR and watching your favorite
TV shows online.
The
new devices are expected to use reduced amounts of power and are
predicted to save consumers $1 billion annually. But for now, that
cable's going to cost you in more ways than one.
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