TIA Backs Voluntary, Not Mandatory, STB Energy Standards

The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) filed comments with the California Energy Commission in response to the agency’s proposal to mandate energy-conservation standards for set-top boxes and network equipment. "Mandating conservation standards at a main communications gateway to the home, where significant changes in functionality are most efficient and likely to occur, will negatively impact innovation and competition in the marketplace and could result in higher energy consumption overall and higher costs to consumers,” the group wrote. “Voluntary standards are better suited to achieve the Commission’s goals of improved energy efficiency for set-top boxes and network equipment without hampering the innovation of a rapidly evolving set of technologies."