STB's consume only 5-6 units a month

With recent concerns raised about the increase in consumption of electricity by set-top boxes in the wake of digitization, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has said set-top boxes (STBs) consume less power than a CFL light.

The Ministry clarified in a statement that most STBs consume about 8 watts of power. It added that STBs consume even lesser electricity when they are on standby mode.


The response from the Ministry comes after US Natural Resources Defense Council had published a study that the Set-top boxes (STB) will hog electricity even in stand-by mode, which implies a rise in the power bills following digitization.

The Ministry falsified the report and claims that the cable STBs does not consume 20 watts of power. Issuing the statement on public interest Ministry announced that digitization will offer huge benefits to consumers in terms of providing superior quality of picture and sound, choice of channels from a large bouquet, movies and games on-demand etc. These benefits will be available to consumers at nominal electricity consumption.


According to them the power consumption in standby mode is even lesser. In most homes STBs are generally not switched off. They are kept on standby mode even when the TV is not being watched so as to avoid the time taken by the STB to reboot and to bring the telecast back on the screen from switch-off mode.

TVs, fans and tube lights each consume about 60 watts of power against the power of 8 watts consumed by a STB. Therefore if a person is watching TV for one hour by keeping on a fan and a tube light in the room, then electricity consumed by these three items in one hour would be more than the power consumed by a STB even if it is kept on for 24 hours. In other words, a STB would consume about only one-fifth of a unit of electricity in a day against 1.5 units consumed by a fan, a TV or a tube light. Similarly a household fridge consumes on an average 4-5 units of electricity per day which is more than 20 times of the power consumed by a STB in a day.

Thus cable STBs consume very nominal electricity to the tune of 5-6 units in a month which is insignificant in comparison with the electricity consumed by other electric appliances in a house.