Energy Saving: How Much Does The Always-On Modem Consume?

Energy saving is a current topic, and more than ever in this period and on the threshold of winter 2023: many of us are wondering how much our electricity and heating bills will weigh.

More attention to how to save electricity and lighten the bill means asking specific questions: how much does each device in the house that works with electricity consume? Given the due proportions – a washing machine, an iron, and an oven are perhaps among the most widespread and energy-intensive appliances – there is also room for everything else, even for the modem that brings the internet into the home. How much does the modem consume in the total bill? Is it okay to keep it on all the time, or can you turn it off when you don’t need it? Let’s answer some of these questions and curiosities.

How To Know How Much You Pay For Modem Consumption

Before knowing how much a modem consumes, let’s start with the electricity bill and the cost of electricity, which depends on what our supplier offers: the price is expressed in €/kWh (Euros per kilowatt hour, the energy that is consumed in a Now ).

The cost per kWh applied is declared by the electricity supplier, together with the fixed expenses, which include, for those who have it, the cost of the TV license: the cost per KWh and the consumption of the modem declared by the manufacturer are the data that allow you to estimate how much you pay in the bill for the device you use to connect to the internet. On average, the incidence of modem consumption does not drastically affect the bill amount.

How Much Does An Always-On Modem Consume?

Consumption varies from modem to modem, and it is good to know them: you can easily find them on the packaging of the modem itself or by searching online on the manufacturers’ websites. The lights on the modem that are always on are not a significant source of energy consumption.

OS operating system from the browser, choosing whether to turn off the LEDs or lower the brightness. If your modem consumes much more energy than seen, one explanation is its age: an older model is more energy-intensive than a new-generation modem and may be worth changing.

Saving Energy! Box Modem Routers

Box models have a series of settings designed to save energy. From the interface accessible via a browser, you can:

1. View energy consumption for 24 hours
2. Configure the timer to deactivate and reactivate the Wi-Fi network, for example, if you prefer not to keep it active at night and need services that use it, such as wireless surveillance cameras.
3. Reduce the maximum transmit power
4. Activate the Green Mode, which allows you to use the LAN ports in energy-saving mode

And if you have one or more smart devices, you can control them with a timer to freely decide when to activate and deactivate them and obtain information on their energy consumption and CO2 emissions. Box, you, therefore, have an intelligent energy savings center.

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Does Wi-Fi Use More Energy Than Ethernet Cables?

Given that in our homes, we almost certainly use Wi-Fi to connect our devices to the modem router, it is good to know that connecting via Wi-Fi consumes more than a cable connection. Still, in the overall calculation, the total annual or monthly expense is miscellaneous little. This consideration of the use of Wi-Fi leads to a broader and more popular question: is it correct to turn off the modem when not in use?

Keep The Modem On All The Time: Yes Or No?

Apart from cases such as holidays, when no one is home for one or two weeks, and the modem can be turned off for this relatively long period (if no essential services are using the internet connection), we can consider a modem as a device born to always remain on. From the point of view of energy consumption, the always active connection only moves the pointer of the Euro account in the bill by a little.

Instead, switching the modem off and on again several times a day represents a potential risk to the health of the modem itself, which must perform its job of starting, checking, and reconnecting to the network each time it is switched on: you can tell from the actual reconnection time after ignition, which is never immediate. This repeated work could damage or otherwise deteriorate the modem more quickly, exposing you to the risk of replacing it.