[ih] Greener computing

[Toerless Eckert]

Dave:

The sad reality is that older hardware, whether router or PCs uses
more jule of energy per Megabit. So, in most cases it does pay off energy
wise to buy recent hardware.

In the leading german home routers, there is even an option to switch
ports to 100Mbps instead of 1Gbps for energy savings. Alas, the energy
saving for that is only 20%, so customers have a hard decision point.

I would assume that energy saving in PC/router hardware will be something
users will look a lot more into in the coming years. So there may be
some good logic to stick to old hardware and hope an upgrade in 3 years
will be a lot more energy saving than one now.

Btw: If you're interested to discuss more of energy saving in networking,
then maybe chime in on the "recipe at ietf.org" mailing list, this is an old
list thart became stale, but a bunch of us at ietf114 felt it was the easiest
available list to discuss energy in networkin related interests (maybe up to
a point where someone in IETF leadership thinks a better/newer list would be
appropriate).

Cheers
    Toerless




On Thu, Sep 01, 2022 at 12:12:42PM -0700, Dave Taht via Internet-history wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 1, 2022 at 11:51 AM Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond via
> Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > On 01/09/2022 18:41, Bob Purvy wrote:
> > > I think by the 90s he's on a PC, but I haven't really said anywhere.
> > > Definitely he's gotta try those AOL coasters.
> >
> > Remember it was floppy 3 1/2 in disks first which were terrible as
> > coasters, only to become more useful when they switched to CDs. That
> > being said I really hope these ended up somehow elsewhere than in a
> > landfill as so many were produced - see
> > https://nowiknow.com/remember-all-those-aol-cds-there-were-more-than-you-think/
> >
> > I wonder how that kind of production would fare in today's
> > environmentally conscious world....
> 
> I kind of feel that way about home routers. There are easily 10x more
> of those than are turned on, that could be upgraded to open firmware,
> enabled with ipv6, bufferbloat fixed, made more reliable and secure.
> Instead they languish in junk bins or landfills. I keep hoping to find
> a charitably suited VC (hah!) willing to back this concept:
> 
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T21on7g1MqQZoK91epUdxLYFGdtyLRgBat0VXoC9e3I/edit
> 
> With the current supply chain problems everywhere, perhaps people will
> relearn how to be frugal.
> 
> Recently an ISP I work with reflashed 700 "obsolete" mikrotik
> wireless-n routers to current openwrt and is giving them away as meshy
> APs. These are well built, and with current software, remain useful
> for another decade, at least.
> 
> I haven't bought a "new" computer in years. Desktops (with enough ram)
> got good enough for me a decade ago.
> 
> > Best,
> >
> > Olivier
> > --
> > Internet-history mailing list
> > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> FQ World Domination pending: https://blog.cerowrt.org/post/state_of_fq_codel/
> Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC
> -- 
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history