4 ms·

You think the energy cost to transfer has dropped by 10 X in eight years? Why?

asdfasgasdgasdg 6mo ago
Seems reasonable to believe to me. The cost of a transfer is presumably calculated based on the base power cost of the transfer machinery, since I really doubt that a router or switch's power usage is linear with the amount of data it's transferring. The amount that an industrial router or switch (which is what 80-90% of the hops between you and Google are) has to have increased its bandwidth by around 10x over that time, and I doubt they have 10x'd their energy usage.
ben_w 6mo ago
Long term historical trend, lots of small tech improvements that add up, like all other tech. Some of it's how antennas are higher gain, which puts more of the energy in the path from one end of a line to the other and wasting less (affecting both cellular and WiFi standards over this period), some is improved compute reducing the cost of routing, but as with the improvements to chips and batteries and PV, the list of things is long and each one only contributes part of it. EDIT: got the maths very wrong with some other estimates, deleted them.
- Schiendelman 6mo ago
  I can see a reduction of maybe 10% over 10 years on a per byte basis. My actual bet is that it's even. For every proposed reduction there's a new load balancing layer, a higher energy wireless standard…
radicalbyte 6mo ago
Eight years ago my internet was using a current over a copper wire. Now it's light through glass. The latter is much more efficient especially over longer distances.
- b40d-48b2-979e 6mo ago
  Eight years ago, your ISP was already on light over glass, they just didn't serve it that way to your house.
  - radicalbyte 6mo ago
    When I was living in the UK the copper cable was 4.5km long. The reason I know that is because BT denied that there was any copper line installed. So I spoke to the building company who told me they installed the copper cables. Then I wrote a letter to my MP. With his help we got BT to conceed and they hooked us up. It was bad DSL but bad DSL is better than a 56k modem. Nowadays DSL lines are anything from a few 100 meters to 1.5 - 2 kilometers. I don't know much about cable TV.
- ChrisRR 6mo ago
  But processing and retranssmission of the data at every network node still takes energy
  - Schiendelman 6mo ago
    And plenty of that hardware is more than ten years old.

Seems reasonable to believe to me. The cost of a transfer is presumably calculated based on the base power cost of the transfer machinery, since I really doubt that a router or switch's power usage is linear with the amount of data it's transferring. The amount that an industrial router or switch (which is what 80-90% of the hops between you and Google are) has to have increased its bandwidth by around 10x over that time, and I doubt they have 10x'd their energy usage.

ben_w 6mo ago

Long term historical trend, lots of small tech improvements that add up, like all other tech. Some of it's how antennas are higher gain, which puts more of the energy in the path from one end of a line to the other and wasting less (affecting both cellular and WiFi standards over this period), some is improved compute reducing the cost of routing, but as with the improvements to chips and batteries and PV, the list of things is long and each one only contributes part of it. EDIT: got the maths very wrong with some other estimates, deleted them.

Schiendelman 6mo ago
I can see a reduction of maybe 10% over 10 years on a per byte basis. My actual bet is that it's even. For every proposed reduction there's a new load balancing layer, a higher energy wireless standard…

radicalbyte 6mo ago

Eight years ago my internet was using a current over a copper wire. Now it's light through glass. The latter is much more efficient especially over longer distances.

b40d-48b2-979e 6mo ago
Eight years ago, your ISP was already on light over glass, they just didn't serve it that way to your house.
- radicalbyte 6mo ago
  When I was living in the UK the copper cable was 4.5km long. The reason I know that is because BT denied that there was any copper line installed. So I spoke to the building company who told me they installed the copper cables. Then I wrote a letter to my MP. With his help we got BT to conceed and they hooked us up. It was bad DSL but bad DSL is better than a 56k modem. Nowadays DSL lines are anything from a few 100 meters to 1.5 - 2 kilometers. I don't know much about cable TV.
ChrisRR 6mo ago
But processing and retranssmission of the data at every network node still takes energy
- Schiendelman 6mo ago
  And plenty of that hardware is more than ten years old.