Preliminary Study on Power Consumption of Typical Home Network Devices

This document reports on our preliminary study of the power consumption of typical household networking equipment under different operational modes. Three ADSL modems are studied: Cisco 837, Linksys AG041 and Linksys WAG54G. We consider each modem’s power consumption when it is being in the Minimum Load (powered on with no physical ADSL/Ethernet connections), Idle (powered on with ADSL/Ethernet connection but no user-ininitated traffic) and Loaded (with a high packet per second link load and loaded NAT table). For the ADSL/Wireless Linksys WAG54G modem, we also consider its power consumption when receiving and transmitting packets. In the Minimum Load, the Linksys AG041 consumes the most power, followed by the Cisco 837. The Linksys WAG54G consumes the least power. A loaded link tends to increase the power consumption of the Cisco 837 modem, and reduce that of the two Linksys modems compared to the Idle state. Loaded NAT tables increase the power consumption of the two Linksys modems, yet slightly reduce that of the Cisco 837. Transmitting using the wireless interface of the Linksys WAG54G with a high bit rate consumes significantly greater power than receiving traffic. Also in this document, our test methodologies, testbed setup, equipment specifications and equipment calibration are described.