The Steering Committee for the new voluntary agreement announced in June to improve the energy efficiency of Internet modems, routers and other residential broadband equipment has conducted its first meeting and taken important first steps to implement the agreement. The agreement sets rigorous requirements that will improve the energy efficiency of small network equipment (SNE) by 10 to 20 percent compared to typical, recently-deployed devices and cover more than 90 percent of U.S. broadband households – roughly 80 million homes.
Signatories to date include service providers AT&T, Bright House Networks, Cablevision, CenturyLink, Charter Communications, Comcast, Cox Communications, DIRECTV, Time Warner Cable and Verizon; and manufacturers Actiontec, ARRIS, Cisco, D-Link, EchoStar Technologies, NETGEAR, Pace and Ubee Interactive. The Committee has issued a Request for Proposal seeking bids for an Independent Administrator that will annually assess each company’s compliance, produce an annual report, and handle many other transparency and verification functions. Potential candidates are invited to contact Paul Hudson at the law firm of Davis Wright Tremaine ([email protected]) to request a copy of the RFP; bids are due September 16.