UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY 

FRAMEWORK PUBLIC MEETING ON

SET-TOP BOXES AND NETWORK EQUIPMENT 

U.S. Department of Energy

1000 Independence Ave., SW

Washington, D.C. 20585

Room SE-089 Review Center

Thursday

January 26, 2012

Facilitator:

Doug Brookman

Public Solutions

Baltimore, MD
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Participants Identified: 

Doug Johnson

Vice-President of Technology Policy

Consumer Electronics Association

Kuriacose Joseph

Director of Engineering 

DIRECTV

Noah Horowitz 

NRDC, the Natural Resources Defense Council

Tom Eckman 

Northwest Power and Conservation Council

Andrew DeLaski 

Appliance Standards Awareness Project

Mark Sharp 

Corporate Environmentals Department

Panasonic

Adam Goldberg

Consultant, Representing TiVo 

Neal Goldberg

General Counsel 

National Cable and Telecommunications Association

Paul Glist 

Davis Wright

Representing NCTA

Charlie Stephens

Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance

Gary Langille

EchoStar Technologies

Representing Dish Network

John Herrick

Brownstein, Hyatt, Faber, Schreck 

Denver, Colorado

Representing Dish Network
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Ren Anderson 

National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Jessica Greffenius

Wilkie, Farr and Gallagher

Chuck Samuels

CEA

Meg Waltner 

National Resources Defense Council

Holly Evans

Strategic Council

Jennifer Sanford 

Cisco Systems

Alan Christensen

Appliance Standards Awareness Project

Joseph Anderson

Telecommunications Industries Association

Tami Graves 

Verizon

Tim Ballo

Earth Justice

Derek Giacomo

Society of Cable and Telecommunication ...

Bill Bell 

Consumer Electronics Association

Katharine Kaplan

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Jennifer Amann

American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy

Adam Christensen, PhD

Appliance Standards Awareness Project
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Paul Hudson

Davis Wright Tremaine LLP

Ken Kurani, PhD

University of California Davis

Matt Malinowski

ICF International

Jeffrey Dygert

AT&T

Participants from DOE:

Cynthia Angelini

Anita Capateri

John Cymbalsky

Jeremy Dommu

Project Manager for Rulemaking

Celia Sher

General Counsel’s Office

Participants from Consultants:

Ben Barrington 

Navigant Consulting

Mike Rivest

Navigant Consulting

Greg Rosenquist

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Louis Desroches

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Allen Tsao

Navigant Consulting
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Debra Brunk

Navigant Consulting

Chris Skahan

Navigant Consulting

Anthony Rotolo

Navigant Consulting

Peter Protopappas

Navigant Consulting

Presenters:

Jeremy Dommu

Allen Tsao

Louis Benoit-Desroches 
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AGENDA

 ITEM PAGE

Welcome, Doug Brookman 6

Welcome for DOE, John Cymbalsky 6

Introductions 7

Agenda Review, Doug Brookman 11

Purpose, Mr. Dommu 13

Opening Remarks 14

Rulemaking Overview, Mr. Dommu 28

Regulatory History, Mr. Dommu 31

Test Procedure Overview, Mr. Tsao 47

Standard Rulemaking Analysis, Mr. Tsao 95

Market & Technological Analysis 95

Product Classes 96

Screening Analysis 124

Downstream Analysis, Mr. Desroches

Energy Use Characterization 187

Markups for Price Determination 190

Life Cycle Cost Analysis 196

Shipments Analysis 208

National Impact Analysis 212

Downstream Analyses 220
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2 MR. BROOKMAN: Let’s start. Good morning 

3 everyone and welcome. This is the U.S. Department 

4 of Energy’s framework public meeting on Set-Top 

5 Boxes and Network Equipment. Today is Thursday, 

6 January 26, 2012 here at the Forestall Building in 

7 Washington, D.C. Apologies for starting a little 

8 bit late this morning. The red line was stacked up. 

9 We also had normal delays getting through security. 

10 But glad you’re here. Welcome.

1 P R O C E E D I N G S

11 We’re going to start off this morning 

12 with welcoming remarks from John Cymbalsky.

13 Welcoming Remarks

14 MR. CYMBALSKY: Thank you, Doug. My 

15 name’s John Cymbalsky. I manage the Appliance 

16 Standards Program for DOE. Let me be the first to 

17 welcome you to this public meeting for Set-Top 

18 Boxes. I see a lot of familiar faces, but also 

19 pretty refreshing to see a lot of new faces here in 

20 a public meeting. We know this is a new product 

21 that we’re embarking on here, so we expected some 

22 new faces and I just want to convey to you that the 
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1 Department, Secretary Chu, in particular, wanted to 

2 be here this morning, but he had to travel to 

3 welcome this group because he actually feels that 

4 this product is very important for the Department to 

5 look into to some energy savings in the future and 

6 he expresses his thanks for everyone really coming 

7 here and engaging in our process.

8 So with that I’ll turn it back to Doug, 

9 and we’ll have hopefully, a very productive meeting

10 today. Thank you.

11 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you. It’s our 

12 tradition, for those of you who are new to these 

13 kinds of proceedings, we have developed kind of 

14 traditions over time, and we typically start off 

15 with introductions. I’m going to go around the 

16 room. If you’d say your name, and organizational 

17 affiliation. For those of you seated at table, you 

18 can get used to turning the mic on and off. We’ll 

19 start over here with Doug. Name and organizational 

20 affiliation. 

21 Introductions

22 MR. JOHNSON: Good morning. My name is 

23 Doug Johnson. I’m with the Consumer Electronics 

24 Association, I’m Vice-President of Technology 

25 Policy. Good morning.
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1 MR. JOSEPH: Good morning. My name is 

2 Kuriacose Joseph. I’m the Director of Engineering 

3 in the Standards and Regulations Program.

4 MR. HOROWITZ: Good morning. I’m Noah 

5 Horowitz with NRDC, the Natural Resources Defense 

6 Council.

7 MR. ECKMAN: I’m Tom Eckman with Northwest 

8 Power and Conservation Council.

9 MR. DeLASKI: I’m Andrew DeLaski with the 

10 Appliance Standards Awareness Project.

11 MR. SHARP: I’m Mark Sharp with Panasonic, 

12 with the Corporate Environmentals Department and I 

13 handle energy efficiency issues for the company.

14 MR. A. GOLDBERG: Adam Goldberg, I’m a 

15 consultant representing TiVo in energy-related 

16 matters.

17 MR. N. GOLDBERG: I’m Neal Goldberg. I’m 

18 General Counsel, the National Cable and 

19 Telecommunications Association.

20 MR. GLIST: I’m Paul Glist with Davis 

21 Wright. I work for NCTA.

22 MR. STEPHENS: I’m Charlie Stephens. 

23 Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance.

24 MR. LANGILLE: I’m Gary Langille. I’m 

25 with EchoStar Technologies, and I’m also here 
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1 representing Dish Network.

2 MR. HERRICK: I’m John Herrick, 

3 Brownstein, Hyatt, Faber, Schreck from Denver. I 

4 representing Dish Network.

5 MS. SHER: I’m Celia Sher. I’m with DOE 

6 General Counsel’s Office.

7 MR. DOMMU: I’m Jeremy Dommu. I’m the 

8 Project Manager at the Department of Energy 

9 overseeing the rulemaking. Welcome, everyone. Of 

10 course, familiar with many of you via email, and on 

11 the phone, and it’s a pleasure to meet many of you 

12 in person.

13 MR. CYMBALSKY: John Cymbalsky, DOE.

14 MR. BROOKMAN: Start right over here, 

15 please. Stand up.

16 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: Louis Desroches, 

17 Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.

18 MR. TSAO: Allen Tsao, Navigant 

19 Consulting.

20 MR. ANDERSON: Ren Anderson with the 

21 National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

22 MS. GREFFENIUS: Jessica Greffenius, 

23 Wilkie, Farr and Gallagher.

24 MR. SAMUELS: Hi. I’m Chuck Samuels. I 

25 represent CEA.
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1 MS. WALTNER: Meg Waltner with the 

2 National Resources Defense Council.

3 MS. EVANS: Holly Evans, with Strategic 

4 Council.

5 MS. SANFORD: Jennifer Sanford with Cisco 

6 Systems.

7 MR. CHRISTENSEN: Alan Christensen, 

8 Appliance Standards Awareness Project.

9 MR. ANDERSON: Joseph Anderson, the 

10 Telecommunications Industries Association. 

11 MR. BARRINGTON: Ben Barrington with 

12 Navigant Consulting.

13 (Some introductions were not caught on 

14 mic) 

15 MS. ANGELINI: Cynthia Angelini, 

16 Department of Energy.

17 MS. CAPATERI: Anita Capateri, Department 

18 of Energy.

19 MS. GRAVES: Tami Graves from Verizon.

20 MR. RIVEST: Mike Rivest, Navigant 

21 Consulting.

22 MR. ROSENQUIST: Greg Rosenquist, Lawrence 

23 Berkeley National Laboratory.

24 MR. BALLO: Tim Ballo, Earth Justice.

25 MR. GIACOMO: Derek Giacomo, with the 
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1 Society of Cable and Telecommunication ...

2 MR. BROOKMAN: Jennifer, I think I missed 

3 you.

4 MS. AMANN: I’m Jennifer Amann, ACEEE.

5 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Welcome. Glad 

6 you’re here. I’m going to do a very brief agenda 

7 review and then we’re going to have some beginnings 

8 of the content of the day.

9 Agenda Review

10 MR. BROOKMAN: I think all of you received 

11 a packet as you signed in this morning, and you can 

12 see that immediately following this agenda review

13 and a few opening slides which sets the content for 

14 today’s meeting, there’s an opportunity for opening 

15 remarks, brief statements, only one person so far 

16 has flagged the Department saying that they would 

17 like to provide comments in advance. If some of the 

18 rest of you do, we welcome your additional thoughts 

19 here at the outset. 

20 Immediately following those opening 

21 statements and remarks, there’s a rulemaking 

22 overview and then we go directly into a test 

23 procedure rulemaking overview. All of you received 

24 this packet. You can see that the slides that are 

25 here, they will be the basis for those questions 
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1 that the Department is putting forward, and also 

2 your capacity to discuss them and answer them.

3 We’ll take a break mid-morning, round 

4 about 11 or so, and immediately following the break 

5 we’ll talk about standards rulemaking analysis. 

6 We’ll have lunch around 12:30. Immediately 

7 following lunch, standards rulemaking analysis will 

8 be continued, and then round about three o’clock or 

9 3:30 today, we’ll be talking about next steps. This 

10 is yet another opportunity for anybody that wishes 

11 to do so, to make closing remarks. Any additional 

12 issues that need to be raised at that time. 

13 So that’s the general plan for today. 

14 Questions? Comments on that? I see none.

15 I’d ask for your consideration. Please 

16 speak one at a time if you would. Please say your 

17 name for the record each time you speak. There will 

18 be a complete transcript of this meeting provided. 

19 I’m going to be cuing individuals by name as best I 

20 can. Also wish to encourage follow on comments. I 

21 think the Department sometimes finds it very useful, 

22 the back and forth between individuals on these 

23 subjects.

24 If you can, keep the focus here. Please 

25 turn your cell phones on silent mode. Limit the 
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1 sidebar conversations. These microphones actually 

2 work pretty well, so they -- if they’re turned on, 

3 you might be heard on the system. Please be 

4 concise, and share the air time. There’s a lot to 

5 be said today, a lot of content to be covered here. 

6 So that’s what I would ask for -- best 

7 consideration. 

8 Questions or comments before we actually 

9 have a few opening slides to set the context? Okay. 

10 Then, Jeremy Dommu.

11 Purpose

12 MR. DOMMU: Hi everyone. The purpose of 

13 the framework public meeting today is to present the 

14 procedural and analytical approaches to evaluate 

15 energy conservation standards for Set-Top Boxes. 

16 (Pause for slides.) Okay. So the purpose 

17 of the framework public meeting today is to present 

18 the procedural and analytical approaches to evaluate 

19 energy conservation standards for Set-Top Boxes. We 

20 have a forum for public discussion, and we encourage 

21 all interested parties to submit data, information, 

22 and written comments. We’ll also inform interested 

23 parties and help us facilitate the rulemaking 

24 process.

25 There is currently a Request for 
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1 Information that’s published in the Federal Register 

2 in which we’re seeking comment. One housekeeping 

3 item to discuss is there was a request to extend the 

4 public comment period for 30 days. That will be 

5 granted. The comment period will be extended until 

March 15th 6 and a notice has been sent to the Federal 

Register

9 We have already discussed the agenda and I 

10 think at this time we will welcome opening remarks.

7 which should be published any day now, 

8 announcing that. 

11 MR. BROOKMAN: Great. And Noah, you 

12 provided some power point slides. Can you cue those 

13 up?

14 MR. HOROWITZ: Yes.

15 MR. BROOKMAN: The floor is yours. 

16 Opening Remarks

17 MR. HOROWITZ: Okay. Good morning. I’m 

18 Noah Horowitz with NRDC. I thought I’d take the 

19 opportunity to share some contextual information to 

20 help frame today’s discussion. It’s our belief, 

21 prior to about a year ago there was little known 

22 about the energy use of these devices, and there’s 

23 been a lot of attention paid to them. 

24 So I’ll go quickly here. I think most 

25 people know, in the room, but want to make sure 
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1 everybody’s starting at the same place, about 80 

2 percent of the homes in the US subscribe to some 

3 form of pay TV, whether it’s from the cable, 

4 satellite, or telecom, and there are about 160 

5 million Set-Top Boxes in use. Many use have more 

6 than one Set-Top Box. And we did a study with the 

7 heavy lifting done by Ecos Consulting. We went into 

8 50 homes with power meters and we found if there was 

9 an on/off button on the remote or the box, it made 

10 little difference. So if the box used 30 watts when 

11 on, maybe it used 29 watts when it was off or in 

12 stand-by mode. And increasingly, DVRs are being put 

13 into people’s homes, and that’s resulted in an 

14 increase in power use of the main box.

15 So here’s the data. If you start on the 

16 left-hand side, that’s a regular or standard 

17 definition box. As you move to the right, that’s 

18 high definition, and then the DVRs on the far right19 hand side. The circles are how much power the 

20 device used when it’s on, and then the bar beneath 

21 it is the power use when it’s in stand-by or off 

22 mode, and you’ll see little to no difference between 

23 on and stand-by. I think that’s the big opportunity 

24 we’re all looking to hopefully address here.

25 And the different colors represent whether 
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1 it’s cable, satellite or IPTV, or the Telcos.

2 Those of you that think in terms of 

3 kilowatt hours per year, the basic box is 100, 150 

4 watts. Now most of those boxes are HD boxes, and 

5 when you go to the right, that’s a high definition 

6 DVR with a couple of tuners in them, you could be 

7 looking in excess of 300 kilowatt hours per year for 

8 a single box. 

9 I need to be clear here. All this data is 

10 of models installed at 2010. There’s been a lot of 

11 progress made, and I’ll talk about that in a moment. 

12 But big picture, that DVR Set-Top Box could consume 

13 as much energy each year as a 42-inch TV it’s 

14 connected to. And then those homes that have a DVR 

15 Set-Top Box and a regular box on their second or 

16 third TV, that could easily exceed the annual energy 

17 use of a new refrigerator.

18 So in summary, about two billion dollars a 

19 year is being spent to power these devices when 

20 they’re not being used. And this is a big 

21 opportunity.

22 Graphically, this is another way of 

23 talking about it. Two-thirds of the energy use of 

24 these devices is when they’re not actively being 

25 used, meaning the user’s not watching TV, recording 
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1 a show, or playing one back. So that’s about more 

2 than 10 million tons of CO2 that are being emitted, 

3 and six power plants worth of electricity, when 

4 they‘re not in use.

5 There’s some good news here. Energy Star 

6 updated their specification for Set-Top Boxes. 

7 Version three is now live and there are about 40 

8 models on the market that meet these requirements. 

9 So the on mode energy has gone down about 30, 35 

10 percent, and we are starting to see some difference 

11 between on and stand-by or sleep modes. So if the 

12 box is using 25 watts in on mode, maybe it’s down to 

13 20 or 18 in the best case, in stand-by. So we’re 

14 starting to see some progress. These are slowly 

15 trickling into the market.

16 I live on the west coast. It’s very hard 

17 for anyone to find an Energy Star v3 box on the 

18 cable side. I don’t know how the deployment’s going 

19 in the others. But it’s a good first step, but it’s 

20 not addressing that need to use much less power when 

21 they’re not being actively used.

22 So the outcome that we’re hoping to see 

23 driven by this DOE process is when the box is not 

24 actively being used, it should be using low levels 

25 of power. Is that number two watts, three watts, 
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1 we’re not sure, but something less than five watts, 

2 we believe, is definitely achievable. And also, we 

3 understand the need to preserve a good user 

4 experience so that when they return to their TV and 

5 hit the on button, it resumes very quickly, and the 

6 box can wake up to record a show if the person so 

7 desires, and there can be security updates and 

8 things like that.

9 There are lots of great experiences out 

10 there that we think this industry can borrow from. 

11 The iPad or Smart Phones, they use a couple of 

12 tenths of a watt when they’re in stand-by mode, yet 

13 they can wake up instantly to receive a phone call 

14 or an e-mail, or if you’re watching a video on an 

15 iPad, it goes to sleep, you hit the button, it 

16 resumes instantly. We think that sort of 

17 functionality is possible here.

18 Then you have the second and third TV. Do 

19 those need to have a Set-Top Box, and/or can they 

20 have a much simpler box? In a multi-room solution, 

21 you can have that second and third TV talking to the 

22 main box, which is sometimes called a media server, 

23 and that box doesn’t need to be connected to the 

24 head end, and there are lots of huge energy savings 

25 that are potentially there. Some people refer to 
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1 those as thin clients, and these are starting to 

2 show up in the market.

3 It’s our understanding that in the best 

4 case, the standard could be finished in about a year 

5 and then there is the typical five year delay from 

6 final publication to the effective date. So we’re 

7 looking at a standard that might not take effect for 

8 six years from today, and we think the changes that 

9 are needed are possible in that time frame. We 

10 shouldn’t settle for an Energy Star v3 sort of level 

11 where there’s still lots of waste in the box. So 

12 there will be changes needed, both at the Set-Top 

13 Box level and the service provider level, but 

14 there’s lots of silica out there that could be 

15 developed by the Intels, the Marvels of the world, 

16 and software and better power scaling is the way to 

17 achieve these savings, and we’ll be talking about 

18 those later today.

19 The very high level of the test method 

20 level, we think it’s critically important for the 

21 boxes to be tested in the real world situation. If 

22 I take one company’s box and test it on a Comcast 

23 system, I might get a very different answer on a 

24 Time Warner system. It depends how it’s deployed 

25 and also if the head end is able to take advantage 
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1 of those power savings features.

2 Then what are we going to test? On the 

3 satellite side, there is a thing called LNBs, low 

4 noise blocks. Those might be using two to four 

5 watts, 24 hours a day. Are those considered? On 

6 the Telco side, there might be a box placed in your 

7 basement or garage called an optical network 

8 terminal where you might receive your data, phone, 

9 and also your TV signal. That could be 15 watts 24 

10 hours a day. That’s not considered in Energy Star, 

11 and that’s 130 kilowatt hours per year. And some 

12 portion of that might be apportioned to the Set-Top 

13 Box here.

14 This rulemaking also talks about 

15 networking equipment. There seems to be less 

16 information in the publications from DOE, and we’re 

17 hoping this can be filled in as well. There are 

18 really two sort of major opportunities as we see 

19 them. People receive high speed internet or 

20 broadband, and as such, they’re getting a cable or a 

21 DSL modem, and many of those same customers have a 

22 wireless network, and there’s a router box. Each of 

23 those in round numbers, call it six watts, you do 

24 the math. That’s another 100-plus kilowatt hours 

25 per year. 
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1 We need good definitions, data and test 

2 methods, and we hope that this process will move 

3 those forward. 

4 And the goal here, from our point of view, 

5 is to have the energy use scaled to the amount of 

6 data that’s being transferred. So if you’re not 

7 downloading a movie or sending e-mail, that should 

8 be using very low power and then quickly wake up 

9 when you need more.

10 So, the report can be found at the website 

11 there. That’s where all the data that I showed you 

12 came from, and here’s the raw data that’s available 

13 in the file. I know you can’t see it here. Thank 

14 you for the opportunity to give these introductory 

15 remarks.

16 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you. We want to 

17 provide an opportunity for anybody else that wishes 

18 to make opening remarks. But before we do that, I 

19 just want to welcome those that are joining us via 

20 the webinar. This meeting is being broadcast, and 

21 we have how many folks joining us via the web?

22 PARTICIPANT: Twenty-five

23 MR. BROOKMAN: Twenty-five. We will 

24 endeavor today, the Department will endeavor, and I

25 will endeavor, to entertain questions from those 
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1 participating via the web as much as possible, so 

2 we’ll be doing that. Other brief opening remarks, 

3 statements at the outset here? Yes, please. Is it 

4 Garret?

5 MR. LANGILLE: It’s Gary Langille with 

6 EchoStar, and also representing Dish Network. I’d 

7 just like to also add to Noah’s presentation. First 

8 of all Noah’s articles and publicity has certainly 

9 elevated the attention to this whole product 

10 category. And what we’d like to see is obviously, 

11 for all of us to work together to come up with an 

12 accurate data set of which we can move forward. 

13 There’s no point in sort of arguing about the data 

14 here. I think that’s probably the first step is to 

15 try to agree on what is the existing condition that 

16 we’re presented with and where can we go from here. 

17 So I really would like to stress that amongst all 

18 participants. 

19 I also wanted to just bring up that Eco’s 

20 Consulting who did the work for NRBC in the report, 

21 they made a report at the last Energy Star Partners’

22 meeting, and they basically did an analysis of Set23 Top Box products, just like Noah did, based on the 

24 older data, except that they did it with the newer 

25 data. In other words, they looked at 40 or 50 boxes 
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1 that are now listed in the new Energy Star Version 

2 three program. And what’s important to note is that 

3 they determined that HD DVR boxes, which is one of 

4 the most power-consuming configurations for our 

5 industry, has already dropped 50 percent, on 

6 average, and standard HD boxes has already dropped 

7 35 percent on average. And that’s before we do any 

8 regulation or anything. That’s today’s situation, 

9 so if we did nothing from today forward, the three 

10 billion dollar problem or usage that Noah’s 

11 describing has already been cut somewhere between a 

12 third to a half, before we even do anything. So 

13 it’s important that people understand the current 

14 situation. 

15 Now, how did that happen? It’s not a 

16 miracle, but basically, it’s important to realize 

17 that this industry went through a very, very large 

18 transition for the D-TV, US digital TV transition 

19 period, and that took effect in, I think it actually 

20 ended up taking effect in June 2009, and realized 

21 that MVPDs, multi video service providers, had to 

22 react very quickly to completely new technology 

23 scenario. And obviously, the result of that was 

24 that there were a lot of products to handle that 

25 transition that use more energy, maybe weren’t the 
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1 most efficient. And basically what’s happened is 

2 that since the two years or so since that occurred, 

3 efficiencies have improved dramatically, technology 

4 providers have dramatically reduced energy 

5 consumption, they’ve integrated components, and 

6 we’re almost back to where we were before.

7 Before the transition, the average Set-Top 

8 Box was about ten watts. It jumped up to 20 watts

9 just to handle HD. Now it’s back down to ten watts, 

10 if you look at a simple, HD Set-Top Box, it’s now 

11 what it was before the transition. Of course 

12 there’s a new feature which everyone loves, which is 

13 the ability to record content in a DVR, digital 

14 video recorder, and obviously that adds some energy. 

15 It’s a big disk drive. So those devices are down to 

16 around 20 watts on average.

17 So admittedly, there was a lot of energy 

18 use during that transition period. It’s now come 

19 down back to almost what it was before, so we need 

20 to keep that in mind as we move forward and look at 

21 these efficiencies, because there’s already a lot of 

22 gain without the need for any regulation. Thank you 

23 very much.

24 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you. Other comments 

25 here at the outset? Yes, please, Doug Johnson.
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1 MR. JOHNSON: Doug Johnson with CEA. Just 

2 a general introductory comment. The Consumer 

3 Electronics Association has in its membership, 

4 companies that design, make and sell Set-Top Boxes, 

5 also companies that manufacture components for Set6 Top Boxes, and also companies that make products 

7 that connect with or operate in conjunction with 

8 Set-Top Boxes. So we certainly have a vital 

9 interest in the Department’s examination of this 

10 product category.

11 We have submitted comments to the 

12 Department on the questions related to the 

13 definitions of Set-Top Boxes and necessity and 

14 appropriateness of categorizing them as covered 

15 products, and also on the topic of technology market 

16 trends that Gary was speaking of that relate to the 

17 efficiency and future power consumption of Set-Top 

18 Boxes. 

19 Most recently, we’ve contributed data on 

20 the power consumption trends for Set-Top Boxes and 

21 submitted that as part of our overall report in 

22 consumer electronics energy use. So we certainly 

23 have an interest in this proceeding and we look 

24 forward to commenting on the request for information 

now due March 15th 25 . Thank you, Doug.
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1 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you. More comments 

2 here at the outset? Andrew DeLaski.

3 MR. DeLASKI: I’m Andrew DeLaski. I know 

4 many of you, but by way of introduction, ASAP is a 

5 coalition project of efficiency advocates, 

6 environmental organizations, consumer groups, 

7 representatives of utilities and also state 

8 government, that works to advance cost-effective, 

9 new energy efficiency standards. 

10 We’re very supportive of the Department 

11 beginning this process. We think that Set-Top Boxes 

12 and the other equipment addressed in the RFI are an 

13 important energy use as documented by the 

14 Department, and by other research that should be 

15 addressed through DOE rulemaking. Certainly as 

16 large as many of the other technologies that are 

17 covered by the Department’s program, if not larger 

18 than most.

19 The progress made by the industry as 

20 described, I think is impressive. We first started 

21 talking about Set-Top Box efficiency, I think, you 

22 know, maybe a dozen years ago. Doug Johnson and I 

23 crossed paths in a few state capitals, talking about 

24 state Set-Top Box efficiency. And there have been a 

25 lot of changes since then. I think we’ve learned a 
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1 lot about how the industry functions. I think we’ve 

2 also seen that, as has been noted, that the overall 

3 energy use has gone up over a dozen years, not down 

4 over the past dozen years. 

5 And I think that as we look at the 

6 opportunity, one that really strikes me is that, as 

7 described by Noah, the opportunity here is what 

8 happens when the user is not watching television, or 

9 not recording? So that the energy consumption, when 

10 the product is off -- and I understand, when it’s 

11 off it’s still providing services to the customer --

12 but when it’s off, how do we get to a deep sleep 

13 mode where the consumption is down at a low level so 

14 that the actual, in-the-field energy use on kilowatt 

15 hours per year basis, is much lower than it is 

16 today? 

17 And one thing that strikes me is there’s 

18 been a lot of buzz in the appliance world, in the 

19 major home appliance world about smart appliances, 

20 and how smart appliances will potentially save a lot 

21 of energy for consumers down the road. But here we 

22 have a product that’s already very smart. It’s a 

23 device that’s already talking to a network all the 

24 time. So the opportunity for this already very 

25 smart device to operate even more smartly so that 
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1 when it’s in a stand-by mode, the consumption goes 

2 down to a very low level, potentially saves 

3 consumers a lot of money, provides significant 

4 environmental and energy benefits, strikes us as an 

5 opportunity that is ripe and we’re very glad that 

6 the industry has begun to focus on it, and that the 

7 opportunities for significant energy savings are 

8 very real. I look forward to participating in this 

9 process. Thank you.

10 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you. Other opening 

11 remarks here? I see none additional. Okay. So 

12 then let’s go then to the substantive materials. 

13 These will be in the handout that you received. 

14 Jeremy.

15 Rulemaking Overview

16 MR. DOMMU: Yes, so as we go through the 

17 substantive materials today, we’re going to present 

18 overviews of the analyses, the work that Department 

19 of Energy performs in considering energy 

20 conservation standards and test procedures. So what 

21 we’ve done is throughout the presentation, we put 

22 issue boxes in, and these have identifying numbers 

23 associated with them. So when they come up, we will 

24 open up the floor to seek you comments and your 

25 input on those specific issue boxes.
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1 You also could find in your packet, 

2 towards the end, a list with those identifying 

3 numbers of all the issues on which of course you can 

4 comment, and that comes mostly from the Request for 

5 Information that was published in the Federal 

Register

12 So I’m going to spend the next 15 minutes 

13 or so giving an overview of what the rulemaking 

14 process is, and then we will -- I’ll hand it off to 

15 some of my consultants from Navigant and Lawrence 

16 Berkeley, and they will get into more detail on the 

17 test procedures and the detailed analysis.

6 . So your feedback is certainly requested. 

7 We’re obviously here today to get your all feedback 

8 in person, and we have the Request for Information. 

9 Here’s the information that you will need in order 

10 to reply to that. And as we said earlier, the 

11 comment period will close now on March 15, 2012.

18 So I’d like to begin by stating the goal 

19 of energy conservation standards and what we’re 

20 looking to do, and that is to achieve the maximum 

21 improvement in energy efficiency which is 

22 technologically feasible and economically justified. 

23 I want to discuss two key points now at 

24 the very onset of the meeting. One is stakeholder 

25 engagement. We want to ensure that your input is 
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1 welcome and we encourage you to provide us your 

2 comments, to provide us information, and be part of 

3 an open, honest dialogue. The more involvement that 

4 we get from stakeholders, could help us consider and 

5 establish the best possible rule. It also could 

6 help us expedite the process and insure the rule 

7 works as well as possible. So as I said, there’s 

8 both the opportunity today, there’s a public comment 

9 period, and also outside of public comment period, 

10 we welcome ex parte communication where you can come 

11 and you can meet with us and you can express any 

12 concerns, or you can talk about any issues about the 

rulemaking, and you would follow ex parte

18 As we go through the process, we also 

19 don’t want to operate in a black box. We want to be 

20 able to provide you information as it becomes 

21 available. So we’re going to be performing a set of 

22 analyses throughout the rulemaking process, and the 

23 goal is as we perform them, we will post preliminary 

24 subject to change-versions of those on our Set-Top 

25 Box rulemaking website, before we post them 

13

14 communication guidance, where you would document and 

15 you would submit to make publicly available, the 

16 issues discussed at those meetings. And we 

17 certainly welcome and encourage you to do that.
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ultimately in the Federal Register 

5 The other issue I want to discuss is 

6 innovation. We recognize that there are challenges 

7 present in creating a rulemaking in a rapidly 

8 changing industry. We know there are competitive 

9 pressures as consumers demand content whenever, 

10 wherever they want, and there will be many 

11 innovations in the future regarding Set-Top Boxes 

12 and the way that content is provided. It is our 

13 goal that as you innovate, you also innovate and 

14 insure that these new innovations increase energy 

15 efficiency, based on the stated goal.

1 for official 

2 public comment, but we just want to be as forthright 

3 with you, to keep you abreast as we go about the 

4 rulemaking process.

16 So the goal here is to create a rulemaking 

17 that increases energy efficiency while not impacting 

18 consumer utility or without restricting innovation. 

19 And the best way to accomplish that goal is your 

20 stakeholder engagement and your input. 

21 Regulatory History

22 I want to discuss the regulatory history. 

23 So Part A of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, 

24 commonly referred to as EPCA, and its subsequent 

25 amendments, establishes the energy conservation 
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1 program for consumer products, other than 

2 automobiles. Essentially what this does is it 

3 creates a list of covered products for the 

4 Department to consider energy conservation 

5 standards. Also, within EPCA, it gives DOE the 

6 authority to classify additional types of consumer 

7 products as covered products, and the criteria for 

8 that is if the average annual per household energy 

9 use of that product is likely to exceed 100 kilowatt 

10 hours per year.

11 So last June we published a Notice of 

12 Proposed Determination, and in that Notice, we 

13 preliminarily determined that Set-Top Boxes and 

14 Network Equipment meet this criteria to be 

15 considered a covered product. 

16 We now have issued this Request for 

17 Information which initiates the rulemaking process 

18 as we consider efficiency standards and test 

19 procedures for this potentially covered product, 

20 Set-Top Boxes. We’re now seeking your information 

21 and comments as we begin this process. As we move 

22 forward and we perform analyses, we’ll have to meet 

23 additional criteria before we can describe an energy 

24 conservation standard, and that is that the average 

25 household energy use exceeds 150 kilowatt hours per 
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1 year and the aggregate national energy use exceeds 

2 4.2 terawatt hours per year. At a later stage, we 

3 will issue a final determination.

4 A couple other regulatory issues. After a 

5 final rule is published, there would then be a five 

6 year compliance period from the issue of the final 

7 rule until it becomes -- until you -- before 

8 manufacturer have to adhere to that rule. So the 

9 rule would apply to products manufactured for sale, 

10 assembled, or imported into the United States after 

11 the compliance date. Products that are manufactured 

12 before the compliance date of the new standard may 

13 still be sold after the compliance date, and there 

14 would be no requirements for consumers to replace 

15 existing products.

16 We also today are initiating the 

17 rulemaking data collection process for a federal 

18 test procedure. The test procedure will specify the 

19 test conditions for measuring the energy consumption 

20 of the product in various power modes, and that test 

21 procedure would be used as we measure energy 

22 consumption as part of our analysis and then later 

23 would be used as manufacturers measure the energy 

24 consumption to insure their products adhere to the 

25 regulation.
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1 Now I want to talk about the stages of the 

2 energy conservation standard. So today we are at 

3 this framework public meeting. We are kicking off 

4 the rulemaking process, and we’re going to be 

5 performing analyses. We’re first beginning with 

6 test procedures and here’s our goal. Our goal is to 

7 have a test procedure Notice of Proposed Rulemaking

8 in the summer of 2012. After that is published in 

the Federal Register

15 Concurrently, we’re also going to be 

16 working on the standard. And the goal for the 

17 standard is to publish a proposed rule in fall 2012, 

18 so less than a year, and then again, have a comment 

19 period, and have a public meeting, and then be able 

20 to revise the NOPR and ultimately issue a final rule 

21 with a goal of the summer of 2013. Then, as I said, 

22 once the final rule comes into place for the 

23 standard, the standard would become applicable five 

24 years from that time. So we’re potentially looking, 

25 if we follow this schedule, at a standard becoming 

9 , just like there was with the 

10 RFI, there will be a public comment period, there 

11 will be a public meeting, in order to gain input. 

12 Then we would be able to amend the NOPR and amend 

13 the test procedure and ultimately issue a final rule 

14 with a goal of spring 2013.
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1 applicable in 2018.

2 So today’s public meeting covers the 

3 rulemaking process for Set-Top Boxes and then, as I 

4 explained, we’ll then have our Notice of Proposed 

5 Rulemaking. We’ll then get your comments, revise 

6 the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, issue a final 

7 rule and then there’d be the effective date.

8 So, comments for the RFI, again, due March 

15th

14 There are seven key factors which we 

15 consider when working towards energy conservations 

16 standard per Energy Policy and Conservation Act 

17 guidance. They are:

9 . All the material from today’s public meeting 

10 will be posted on our Set-Top Box website, and that 

11 is posted, the URL is below, and we will use all --

12 we’ll post all our analyses, as I mentioned before, 

13 to that website as well.

18 • The economic impacts on consumers and 

19 manufacturers

20 • The lifetime operating cost savings

21 • The potential increased cost of the product

22 • The total projected energy savings

23 • The impact on utility performance

24 • The impact on any lessening of competition
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1 • The need for national energy conservation

2 • And any other factors the Secretary considers 

3 relevant.

4 So before I get into -- we get into the 

5 details, I want to give a two minute overview of the 

6 analyses that we perform in the rulemaking. So it 

7 starts with a market technology assessment. And 

8 what that does is it characterizes the industry, 

9 identifies the relevant players. It looks at 

10 current energy consumption of product and 

11 opportunities to reduce energy consumption, and it 

12 also establishes product classes.

13 We then do a screening analysis, and in 

14 the screening analysis, we screen out and determine 

15 which technology and which design options we want to 

16 consider efficiency standards for. That then feeds 

17 into an engineering analysis. And the engineering 

18 analysis looks at the relationship between cost and 

19 efficiency of the product. And efficiency is

20 measured using the previous described test 

21 procedure, and essentially what we’re doing is for 

22 each increase in efficiency of a Set-Top Box, we 

23 look at what the associated cost to manufacture that 

24 box to that level of efficiency is. So essentially 
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1 we develop a curve. 

2 Once we understand what the cost of each 

3 efficiency level is, we then apply mark ups to it, 

4 so then we could see how the increase cost to 

5 manufacture that product is then passed on to 

6 consumers. The energy use characterization analyzes 

7 what the energy consumption of that product would 

8 be.

9 So using that information we could then 

10 look at, in the life cycle cost and payback period 

11 analysis, what the impact of a standard would be on 

12 consumers. So what the cost will be of purchasing, 

13 obtaining, and then operating that product over its 

14 entire lifetime, and what the payback is. So what’s 

15 -- how long would it take to get back any increase 

16 cost to obtain that product through potentially 

17 reductions in energy consumption, repairs and 

18 maintenance, et cetera.

19 Once we understand what the 

20 relationship is on the consumers, we can apply 

21 shipment forecasts so we could see what shipments 

22 would occur in the future considering what the 

23 useful life, what removals are, what purchases are, 

24 so we could see the effect of a standard over a 30 

25 year time frame. 
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1 With that analysis, we’re then able, and 

2 all of these prior analyses feed into this national 

3 impact analysis, and that calculates two key 

4 metrics. The first is national energy savings, which 

5 states how much energy would be saved by a standard 

6 over a 30 year period. It also has a national net 

7 present value, which looks at what the economic 

8 impact on the country would be of any energy 

9 conservation standard. Those two key metrics are 

10 part of the criteria and are strongly used as we 

11 consider what energy efficiency conservation 

12 standard we would use.

13 Once we’ve completed that, we then do 

14 downstream analysis that looks at what the impact of 

15 the standard would be on certain groups of the 

16 population. So in the life cycle subgroup analysis, 

17 we could look at specific demographics. In the 

18 manufacturing impact analysis, we look at what the 

19 impact of a standard with the manufacturers. In the 

20 utility impact analysis, we look at what the impact 

21 would be on power generation. In the employment 

22 impact analysis we obviously look at what the effect 

23 would be on direct and indirect employment. In the 

24 emissions analysis and monetization of emissions, we 

25 look at the environmental impact and we look at the 
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1 greenhouse gas and power plant emissions that are 

2 reduced associated with this standard. And then 

3 finally, in the regulatory impact analysis, we will 

4 look at other regulatory options and compare those 

5 to a mandatory standard.

6 So that’s what we do to create an energy 

7 conservation standard. That’s how everything fits 

8 together. And throughout the rest of the day, we 

9 are going to discuss in detail, each of these 

10 analysis and get your input and comments on how we 

11 perform them. So with that, I’m going to hand it 

12 over to Allen Tsao of Navigant Consulting, and he’s 

13 going to walk us through the test procedures.

14 MR. BROOKMAN: Let’s see if there are any 

15 questions here following this overview presentation. 

16 We have a few. I’ll take this one first. 

17 MR. N. GOLDBERG: Just a quick question.

18 MR. BROOKMAN: Please say your name for 

19 the record.

20 MR. N. GOLDBERG: Neal Goldberg from the 

21 National Cable Telecommunications Association. I 

22 understand the flow on the time chart, but I assume 

23 that anywhere along that line if there’s a 

24 determination made or that could be made that a rule 

25 is not necessary, the fact that we have final rule 
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1 in our chart here is not a preordained conclusion. 

2 Is that correct?

3 MR. DOMMU: Yes.

4 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you. Please say your 

5 name.

6 MS. KAPLAN: Katharine Kaplan.

7 MR. BROOKMAN: You need to turn on the 

8 microphone. There you go.

9 MS. KAPLAN: Great. Thanks. Katharine 

10 Kaplan, US EPA’s Energy Star Program. I’m wondering 

11 if we can have a little more clarity about the 

12 effective date for the test method in comparison to 

13 the final rule so that -- the test method is 

14 finished in the summer of -- or spring of 2015. 

15 Does it just sit and wait for the standard to become 

16 effective, or does it become the tool that one must 

17 use to declare energy use sooner than the final 

18 rule?

19 MR. DOMMU: To the best of my knowledge, 

20 it then becomes applicable after the final rule of 

21 the test procedure.

22 MR. BROOKMAN: Yes, please. Adam.

23 MR. A. GOLDBERG: Yeah, Adam Goldberg for 

24 TiVo. Katharine, I think the -- what is it -- the 

25 RFI says six months after adoption, it’s effective 
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1 for state use.

2 MR. BROOKMAN: Andrew.

3 MR. DeLASKI: I think it’s a question for 

4 DOE General Counsel, that’s why -- Jeremy, I think 

5 your answer could be right, but I also think that in 

6 my experience, I’ve seen the Department specify the 

7 effective date as part of the final rule. So in 

8 other words, that’s open for the Department to say, 

9 and it could be flexible, depending on what 

10 stakeholders say, what the Department decides. 

11 That’s rulemakings.

12 MR. BROOKMAN: So say that for the record, 

13 thank you.

14 MS. SHER: Hi. This is Celia Sher. We 

15 haven’t reached a determination on that yet.

16 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you.

17 MR. DeLASKI: To give an example, there 

18 was -- and Chuck may remember this as well -- it was 

19 clothes washers. There was a case where the 

20 Department issued a new test method that went into 

21 effect -- when we went from EF to MEF for clothes 

22 washers, there was a staging of the implementation 

23 of the test method. That was to account for change.

24 MR. BROOKMAN: We have a question via the 

25 web. I’ll read this first. The question is, is the 
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1 cost of the regulation itself calculated in the cost 

2 analysis of the product?

3 MR. DOMMU: I do not know the answer to 

4 that question. Does anyone else?

5 MR. BROOKMAN: John Cymbalsky?

6 MR. CYMBALSKY: John Cymbalsky, DOE. The 

7 impact of the regulation on manufacturers is part of 

8 the National Impact analysis that Jeremy described 

9 earlier.

10 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you. Doug Johnson.

11 MR. JOHNSON: Doug Johnson, CEA. At what 

12 stage in this chain of analyses do you typically 

13 account for the savings impact of existing programs, 

14 public and private sector, and also the natural rate 

15 of innovation, the impact that has on efficiency? 

16 Is that at the National Impact analysis level or 

17 what stage?

18 MR. DOMMU: Yeah, we would look at it at 

19 both the National Impact analysis level, and we 

20 compare the base case to a standards case. The base 

21 case likely would include improvements in 

22 efficiency. And then also in the manufacturing 

23 impact analysis, we could potentially look at 

24 alternative options to regulation, what the impact 

25 would be. And then calculate the national energy 
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1 savings and the national net present value of those 

2 regulatory alternatives.

3 MR. JOHNSON: One follow on. So the 

4 Department is not planning to use a business as 

5 usual point of comparison then?

6 MR. DOMMU: Yeah, I mean the goal would be 

7 to make the analysis as accurate as possible.

8 MR. JOHNSON: Okay. Thank you.

9 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you.

10 MR. CYMBALSKY: This is John Cymbalsky, 

11 DOE. Just to get the terminology -- business as 

12 usual doesn’t mean necessarily, frozen efficiency. 

13 I don’t know if you were characterizing it that way. 

14 The shipments forecast would include Energy Star and 

15 things like that in the baseline.

16 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Paul.

17 MR. GLIST: Jeremy, you’ve just spoken 

18 about the cost to the manufacturer and the cost to 

19 the consumer, and savings to the consumer, given 

20 that Set-Top Boxes operate on networks and there are 

21 costs on networks for changes in the CPE, where in 

22 the analysis do you account for costs on the 

23 network? I haven’t seen it in this or in the 

24 ancillary documents so far.

25 MR. DOMMU: Yeah, I mean, as I said, we 
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1 want to make this analysis as true to life as 

2 possible. So if there are costs associated with 

3 performing and regulating with the conservation 

4 standard that would increase the cost of 

5 manufacturing, we would want to look at that in the 

6 engineering analysis.

7 MR. GLIST: So the question I’m asking is, 

8 cost of manufacturing of the box is one element of 

9 cost. I’ll use cable as an example. There are 

10 costs in the head end equipment, costs in protocols, 

11 changes in operations, changes in education for CSI 

12 -- I mean there’s a lot of stuff that’s outside of 

13 the box and not -- doesn’t affect Cisco as a 

14 manufacturer. So where in the analysis would DOE 

15 account for those costs associated with these 

16 changes?

17 MR. DOMMU: Right. So to the effect that 

18 those costs are passed on to consumers, it would be 

19 calculated in the markups analysis, so we determine 

20 what the cost would be on consumers. And then that 

21 feeds into the life cycle cost and ultimately the 

22 national impact analysis.

23 MR. DOMMU: So markups would include any 

24 costs anywhere in the eco system?

25 MR. DOMMU: That’s passed on to the 
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1 consumers.

2 MR. GLIST: That’s passed on to the 

3 consumer. Okay. Thank you.

4 MR. BROOKMAN: Garrett.

5 MR. LANGILLE: Gary Langille, EcoStar. 

6 I’m not sure if this will end up applying, but I 

7 want to raise the issue that if this is -- these 

8 decisions are made as viewed by a service provider 

9 that actually provides installation services along 

10 with the Set-Top Box, sort of part of the delivery 

11 infrastructure, you know, when it comes to emissions 

12 and items like that, will -- for instance, our 

13 industry has this term called “truck roll.” It’s 

14 something to always be avoided if possible. 

15 Basically that means having a technician jump in a 

16 truck and drive out to the customer’s site to either 

17 service or install a product. In many cases we’ve 

18 seen, quote, “new technology” which could be 

19 extremely efficient, cause increased truck rolls of 

20 which the emissions from the truck rolls and various 

21 other environmental impact isn’t accounted for. Is 

22 that at all within the scope of including those

23 kinds of things into this analysis?

24 MR. DOMMU: Well certainly we look at 

25 repairs and maintenance when we look at the life 
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1 cycle costs, so that’s impacting in the life cycle 

2 cost analysis. I’m unsure of how we fit that into 

3 the emissions analysis, but I think it’s a valid 

4 point and we certainly welcome your input and any 

5 information you have on the impact of emissions for 

6 truck roll.

7 MR. BROOKMAN: We have another question 

8 via the web, and the question is, will DOE consider 

9 the cost to service providers as well as 

10 manufacturers? Is there any thought to define the 

11 service providers as manufacturers?

12 MR. DOMMU: I’ll allow general counsel to 

13 answer that question.

14 MS. SHER: We’ll consider that. This is 

15 Celia Sher, DOE. We will consider that. You know, 

16 we’re -- at this phase of rulemaking we’ll consider 

17 all comments, so, you know, we just encourage you to 

18 send in those comments and we will definitely 

19 consider it.

20 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you. So this has 

21 been a productive back and forth here. Additional 

22 questions here before we proceed with the content in 

23 more detail? Okay. So let’s proceed. Thank you, 

24 Jeremy.

25 MR. DOMMU: All right. Thank you, 
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1 everyone.

2 MR. BROOKMAN: Now we’re going to hear 

3 from Allen.

4 Test Procedure Rulemaking Overview

5 MR. TSAO: Good morning. I’m going to 

6 talk about the test procedure rulemaking process as 

7 well as bring up some of the RFI questions. The 

8 objectives of the test procedure is to develop a 

9 representative energy test that measures the energy 

10 consumption of Set-Top Boxes. As outlined in the 

11 Energy Policy Conservation Act, it would include 

12 active, stand-by, and off mode power measurements. 

13 And again, this is to support all of the analysis 

14 and the standards level in terms of what we mean by 

15 energy efficiency or by energy consumption of the 

16 Set-Top Boxes. 

17 So in looking at the test procedure, DOE 

18 will look at factors like insuring that the test is 

19 repeatable from lab to lab or time to time or just 

20 to make sure that a Set-Top Box can be characterized 

21 accurately, and that it represents typical household 

22 usage, and in general would attempt to minimize 

23 burden on testing.

24 The rulemaking flow follows similar to the 

25 standards rulemaking. We start off at this stage 
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1 with the Request for Information, which we’ve 

already published in the Federal Register

17 In order to establish the test procedure, 

18 DOE will leverage from existing test procedures out 

19 there and DOE has looked at the Energy Star test 

20 procedure as well as the IEC or International 

21 Electrotechnical Commission’s 62087 standard, and 

22 we’ll also welcome and include any industry test 

23 procedures that should be considered. 

2 , followed 

3 by a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, and then ending 

4 with a final rule. We talked about compliance 

5 period before, but these are just typically, 

6 compliance is some period to be determined after the 

7 final rule is published. For both the Request for 

8 Information or this framework public meeting, and 

9 the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, there will be a 

10 public meeting held specifically for the test 

11 procedure to talk about the published -- whatever’s 

12 been published, and to gain additional feedback from 

13 all the stakeholders. And similar to the RFI, 

14 you’ll be allowed to provide written comments to it 

15 as well. And as Jeremy described, this process does 

16 run concurrently with the standards rulemaking.

24 In general, the test procedure would be, 

25 one, to describe the power measurements for various 
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1 modes of operation. So as discussed, Set-Top Boxes 

2 are complicated functionality, so what constitutes 

3 on and active and sleep modes would have to be 

4 defined, as well as any energy metrics used to 

5 define what it means to be --what the energy 

6 efficiency or consumption of a Set-Top Box would be.

7 I will describe the modes of operation in 

8 a little more detail. As an example, I’ve described 

9 how the Energy Star test procedure records power 

10 modes at various active and standby or off modes. 

11 These are -- the Department of Energy could include 

12 any or all or just -- or additional modes of 

13 operation other than what’s listed up here. But in 

14 general, the Energy Star one does include things 

15 like watching live TV, recording and playback from a 

16 DVR, recording and playback from sort of removable 

17 media, as well as playing through some sort of 

18 multi-room setup. And for standby and sleep mode, 

19 the Energy Star, for example, has defined sleep and 

20 auto power down modes, and deep sleep modes that are 

21 additionally tested.

22 Once those modes of operations are 

23 defined, the next step is to sort of determine what 

24 the energy metric or the energy efficiency of the 

25 Set-Top Box would be. An example, DOE can consider 
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1 many different energy efficiency metrics. I outline 

2 an example here on what Energy Star has used for 

3 their energy efficiency metric, as maybe you guys 

4 are more familiar with this type of metric. This is 

5 taking all those power mode measurements and 

6 combining them into a single metric referred to as 

7 typical energy consumption or TEC, and it’s based on 

8 various -- on assumed weighted time durations of 

9 each mode of operation.

10 As an example here, in a 24-hour period, 

11 Energy Star would assume, you know, depending on 

12 available features, you know, seven hours on on 

13 mode, six hours in the sleep mode, and if there’s 

14 auto power-down, seven hours for that, and if 

15 there’s a deep sleep capability, then four hours for 

16 that.

17 The next thing is to get into some of the 

18 RFI questions that we had published regarding the 

19 test procedure section. The first issue to talk 

20 about that we’re asking comment about is sort of the 

21 impact of all the software associated with the Set22 Top Boxes. So this is to address, you know, in 

23 general, the boxes as they are physically 

24 manufactured, and then generally, and in some cases, 

25 the service provider, the network, adds a software 
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1 layer on top of the Set-Top Box. Now the software 

2 may impact various functionalities and ultimately 

3 the energy consumption of the Set-Top Box. So, for 

4 example, the software may provide constant 

5 communication with the service provider, video on 

6 demand, or security requirements, as well as 

7 electronic programming guide information. 

8 Additionally, it may dictate behavior, like the 

9 availability of low power sleep modes, or when 

10 automated updates occur, as well as sort of the 

11 utilization of the hardware while in operation.

12 So at this time we’re looking for just 

13 comments, written and orally here, on just in 

14 general how the service provider software would 

15 impact the energy consumption of Set-Top Boxes and 

16 specifically, how it would impact idle and sleep 

17 power modes that would be available.

18 MR. BROOKMAN: Comments in response to 

19 these two issue boxes? Noah.

20 MR. HOROWITZ: Noah Horowitz with NRDC. 

21 Again, let’s say this is a Set-Top Box, sorry for 

22 those people on the phone, how it’s deployed by the 

23 service provider can significantly impact the energy 

24 use. So if one service provider, its software and 

25 how they deploy the box, that box might go to --
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1 when you hit the on/off button, that might cause the 

2 hard drive to stop spinning and maybe turn off some 

3 tuners. Many of the boxes deployed today could have 

4 that lower power, but the service provider has 

5 chosen, for whatever reason, not to do so. So we 

6 have to recognize that. 

7 In fact, there are going to be some 

8 software updates that are going to be pushed from 

9 the cable industry to existing boxes, to take 

10 advantage of that functionality. So, in summary, 

11 the software and how the box is deployed really does 

12 matter. It’s service-provider specific.

13 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Andrew DeLaski.

14 MR. DeLASKI: I’ve got some questions on 

15 the prior slide, is that okay?

16 MR. TSAO: Sure.

17 MR. DeLASKI: I don’t want to take 

18 attention from these questions.

19 MR. BROOKMAN: No, let’s go back.

20 MR. DeLASKI: So I had a question on slide 

21 -- bring you back a bit to slide -- to your timeline 

22 slide. Slide 15. This is more of a process 

23 question. As we -- as you look at the schedule 

24 here, with a test procedure proposed rule due in the 

25 summer and then a final rule due in the fall, 
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1 concurrent, roughly, with the standard. So my 

2 understanding, typically of how DOE does these 

3 analyses is that you need to have your test method 

4 pretty well locked down in order to do the analysis 

5 for the NOPR. Is that a fair characterization?

6 MR. TSAO: Yep.

7 MR. DeLASKI: Because you can’t tell us 

8 what the energy use is until you know what the test 

9 method is.

10 MR. BROOKMAN: Jeremy, go ahead.

11 MR. DOMMU: Yeah, and that’s why, you 

12 know, we will have at least the proposed rule for 

13 how we do the test procedure before we come up with 

14 the standard Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.

15 MR. DeLASKI: Right. But I guess my -- as 

16 I look at this schedule here, it looks like there’s 

17 not a lot of flexibility as you go from the NOPR to 

18 the final rule. Your flexibility is compromised, I 

19 guess is what I would say, or limited, because 

20 you’re trying to do an analysis for a rulemaking 

21 where you went to a proposed rule and if you change 

22 the test method, then you’ve just changed your 

23 analysis, you know, and that sort of leads into this 

24 do-loop of redoing things and things get pushed 

25 back. So what I’m wondering about is is there 
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1 something that can happen -- I think there needs to 

2 be more dialogue I guess is what I’m suggesting, 

3 earlier in this process with stakeholders. Because 

4 if what happens, if we meet here today and the next 

5 time we meet is in a NOPR hearing about the test 

6 method, and people are all like, oh, this has got 

7 this problem and this problem, then I see that as 

8 knocking your schedule off rapidly.

9 MR. CYMBALSKY: Right. So this is John 

10 Cymbalsky. I think Jeremy mentioned in his opening 

11 remarks that we plan on putting all the analysis up 

12 on the web as soon as we finish it, as opposed to 

13 waiting for public meetings. And we also plan -- we 

14 discussed some webinars and things of that nature 

15 along the way, so as not to wait for a public 

16 meeting for a NOPR. So all the information’s out 

17 there, and stakeholders can react in real time to 

18 what we’re doing.

19 MR. DeLASKI: So that’s true for both the 

20 standard analysis and the test method?

21 MR. CYMBALSKY: Yeah, I think both. I 

22 think everything we can provide, we will provide.

23 MR. DeLASKI: So I would think that sort 

24 of a draft NOPR test method, you know, something 

25 along those lines, you know, figuring how to fit 
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1 that in so that people have a chance to respond to a 

2 draft.

3 MR. CYMBALSKY: I think that’s important.

4 MR. DeLASKI: I just -- I think we’ve seen 

5 situations where that NOPR ends up being pretty much 

6 the final because you don’t have the flexibility, 

7 given the schedule you’re trying to adhere to. So I 

8 think having a draft, that would really be valuable.

9 MR. CYMBALSKY: Okay. 

10 MR. DeLASKI: And put that into your 

11 schedule so people can plan for that and react to 

12 it.

13 MR. BROOKMAN: Neal.

14 MR. N. GOLDBERG: Neal Goldberg, NCTA. I 

15 echo those concerns. I think that’s very good 

16 point. And I guess my question on the final rule, 

17 the test procedure final rule, what does that 

18 actually mean for a provider or manufacturer? Once 

19 a final rule is adopted, what are the obligations on 

20 the manufacturer or the provider? And I ask that 

21 because the final rule’s going to be adopted before 

22 a standards final rule is going to be adopted. So 

23 I’m trying to figure out what the obligation is once 

24 a test procedure final goes into place, and my 

25 second question, probably for the general counsel, 
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1 is whether test procedure final rule is a final 

2 order for judicial review purposes? But maybe I 

3 want to know the obligations first before I worry 

4 about the other.

5 MR. BROOKMAN: Celia.

6 MS. SHER: This Celia Sher, DOE. I can 

7 answer your first question, and the -- it depends on 

8 the effective date and the compliance date of the 

9 test procedure. I don’t think -- we haven’t -- we 

10 don’t have a final determination on that, but 

11 typically, 180 days after a test procedure is -- a 

12 final test procedure is published, that test 

13 procedure is effective. So this is for 

14 representation purposes, it’s not the same as a 

15 compliance date.

16 MR. N. GOLDBERG: Right, but I guess, 

17 getting back to my other question, which is what are 

18 the obligations on a provider or a manufacturer once 

19 the effective date comes to pass on a test 

20 procedure, particularly if the standards have not 

21 been adopted yet? You adopt a test procedure, what 

22 does that mean for Cisco, Motorola, Comcast, Cox, 

23 EchoStar, Dish?

24 MR. BROOKMAN: John Cymbalsky -- I’m 

25 sorry, Celia.
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1 MS. SHER: Well, once that test procedure 

2 is effective, under our statute 6293 of EPCA, 

3 Section C, 180 days after a test procedure is 

4 effective for representation purposes, basically you 

5 have to have compliance for representation purposes. 

6 So if you look at Section C, you can take a look at 

7 what that means of 6293 of EPCA.

8 MR. N. GOLDBERG: But does that mean a 

9 manufacturer or a service provider has to do 

10 something, has to change around his procedures as of 

11 the effective date, possibly prior to the standard 

12 in place? That’s my question, because of the 

13 staggered final rule situation. And we can take 

14 this off-line. I’m just trying to figure out --

15 MR. CYMBALSKY: Yeah, I thought we 

16 discussed this earlier that, you know, we haven’t 

17 decided what the date of the final test procedure 

18 that you’ll have to follow is. That will be known 

19 well in advance of when --

20 MR. N. GOLDBERG: Let me just -- what does 

21 a manufacturer have to do?

22 MR. CYMBALSKY: Well, you’ll have to test 

23 to the test procedure when the law -- when our 

24 notice says it becomes compliant to do so.

25 MR. N. GOLDBERG: Right, so I suppose it’s 
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1 possible that your notice could say here’s our test 

2 procedure, but we’re not going to put it into effect 

3 until we put up final standards.

4 MR. CYMBALSKY: That’s a possibility, 

5 sure.

6 MR. BROOKMAN: We’ll go to Adam first, and 

7 then back to Doug.

8 MR. A. GOLDBERG: Adam Goldberg for TiVo. 

9 My understanding, and I apologize if it doesn’t 

10 follow through to Set-Top Boxes from TVs is that 

11 when a test procedure is effective than any time 

12 you’re describing what the power consumption of your 

13 device is, you’ve got to use the test method, and 

14 any, for example, state regulations for disclosure 

15 or state consumption requirements would all have to 

16 be based on the official DOE test procedure. Right?

17 MR. CYMBALSKY: That's correct. Yes.

18 MS. SHER: That's correct.

19 MR. A. GOLDBERG: So --

20 MS. SHER: It’s preempted.

21 MR. A. GOLDBERG: So whatever obligations 

22 there are on manufacturers for standards promulgated 

23 by others, you’ve got to use the DOE test procedure.

24 MS. SHER: The test procedure that DOE --

25 MR. CYMBALSKY: And so by representation 
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1 we mean any market literature, we mean the yellow 

2 FTC sticker, all that kind of thing.

3 MR. TSAO: Energy Star.

4 MR. CYMBALSKY: Energy Star.

5 MR. BROOKMAN: So that was John Cymbalsky, 

6 and now to Doug Johnson.

7 MR. JOHNSON: Adam essentially made the 

8 same point I was about to make, but, for example, 

9 the immediate obligation would be with Energy Star

10 program, if Energy Guide is in place, it would be an 

11 obligation under the new -- at that time, new DOE 

12 test procedure.

13 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. I’d like to flash 

14 forward back to those issue boxes and see if we can 

15 get some additional -- Andrew’s not finished -- go 

16 ahead.

17 MR. DeLASKI: Slide 25.

18 MR. TSAO: I guess we went too fast, 

19 Andrew.

20 MR. DeLASKI: I’m pretty much a newbie 

21 when it comes to this technology and I don’t have ... 

22 my apologies, so I have a -- if you look at that 

23 slide 25 --

24 MR. TSAO: Sorry, the numbers on this 

25 presentation -- is it this slide?
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1 MR. DeLASKI: Pie chart.

2 MR. TSAO: Pie chart, okay. Sorry about 

3 that.

4 MR. DeLASKI: I’m curious, based upon 

5 friends in the industry and friends around the 

6 table, whether folks think that that pie chart 

7 represents what happens in the field today. Is that 

8 a good representation of what’s happening in the 

9 field today? You want me to reask the question for 

10 the record?

11 MR. BROOKMAN: Say it again, Andrew.

12 MR. DeLASKI: I’m asking folks around the 

13 table, based on their experience, does that pie 

14 chart represent -- is it a good representation or 

15 somewhere in the ball park of what’s happening in 

16 the field today?

17 MR. BROOKMAN: So we’ll start with Noah.

18 MR. HOROWITZ: Noah, with NRDC. I was 

19 going to ask the same question and make a comment 

20 here. I think there is general consensus around the 

21 room, at least for the main TV in the home, that 

22 it’s on for seven hours per day, and the box that’s 

23 powering that TV is also on for seven hours a day. 

24 What happens those other 17 hours is a mystery, I 

25 think, to many of us, and I’m hoping the DOE process 
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1 can gather more data. 

2 I think we have a terminology challenge, 

3 and opportunity. We all, I think, can quickly agree 

4 to what on or active means, but when you’re not 

5 watching, you’re recording a show, is that one state 

6 called standby or sleep, or are there various 

7 degrees within that? We’ve heard terms that Energy 

8 Star is using, light sleep and deep sleep. Is that 

9 sufficiently tight or not? Let’s take a look at 

10 that. Some of the test procedure that are out there 

11 refer to something called standby, which may or may 

12 not mean the same thing, so hoping we could rally 

13 around some common terms.

14 What happens when you hit the on/off 

15 button on the remote control, or less likely, 

16 physically touching the Set-Top Box? That may put 

17 it in a certain state. Call that standby, sleep, 

18 light sleep. Will that box stay there until there’s 

19 some signal from the cable or satellite or Telco

20 provider, and that’s what we’re measuring? Or does 

21 something happen maybe at one in the morning where 

22 it goes into even a lower power state? So are there 

23 things like light and deep sleep? And then 

24 something that’s not shown on slide 24 -- what 

25 happens when you’re in that kind of steady state 
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1 condition where you’re not watching or recording a 

2 show. You think, to the user’s terminology, they 

3 turned it off, but then there’s some sort of 

4 electronic program guide update, or some sort of 

5 download of content from the service provider? 

6 That’s not shown in active or standby now. We need 

7 to account for that.

8 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. 

9 MR. JOHNSON: These things also get 

10 further complicated. The world I just described is 

11 the main box, which might be a DVR in some homes. 

12 The boxes on your second or third TV might go to a 

13 much lower power state all the time, not that 

14 interim one. So I think the pie chart that’s shown 

15 on 25 is not the world that’s currently out there. 

16 I think we agree on the seven hours, but I don’t 

17 think it’s correct to assume the other 17 hours are 

18 as characterized there.

19 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you. Garrett?

20 MR. LANGILLE: Hi, this is Gary from 

21 EchoStar.

22 MR. BROOKMAN: Sorry, Gary. I apologize.

23 MR. LANGILLE: Try my last name. I agree 

24 with Noah that all these terms need to be very well 

25 defined. As far as this particular picture, it’s as 
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1 good as any other as far as today, but the biggest 

2 issue I see is that we need to monitor -- there 

3 appears to be a trend starting, as Noah also 

4 indicated, where there is sort of a central sort of 

5 controller or server within the home, and then 

6 there’ll be what we call thin clients in the 

7 industry, out at all the individual TVs. And one 

8 thing that we don’t -- well, I haven’t seen good 

9 data on, I think we all need to figure out how to 

10 get it -- is the usage rates, you know, from the 

11 primary TV to the secondary TV to the third TV. And 

12 it’s not really just how many hours each one is on, 

13 it’s also are those hours concurrent or non14 concurrent? Because if you turn on one of these 

15 thin clients, you not only need to turn that on, but 

16 the main box has to turn on in addition to the thin 

17 client to be able to use it.

18 So we’re definitely missing some data, you 

19 know, I’ve been looking for for the last year, 

20 because we have one of those products and I haven’t 

21 been able to characterize it as good as I’d like to.

22 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you. Charlie 

23 Stephens.

24 MR. STEPHENS: Charlie Stephens, Northwest 

25 Energy Efficiency Alliance. I guess -- I’ll give a 
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1 little forecast here. We are now monitoring more 

2 than 100 households, the consumer electronic suites 

3 in those households, including all the televisions 

4 and the peripherals that go with them. And we -- I 

5 can’t tell you the recording interval, it may be 15 

6 second data. We’re getting a lot of data, and we’re 

7 also developing more ways to get more data quickly, 

8 easily, and cheaply, once we understand what we 

9 need. But that data will be shared with DOE and 

10 everyone else when it’s done. 

11 The houses are monitored now, but it’s a 

12 long monitoring period. It’s about a -- I think 

13 it’s a six month monitoring period that we’re going 

14 through.

15 MR. BROOKMAN: Do you think you’ll have 

16 that data by when?

17 MR. STEPHENS: Summer, probably.

18 MR. BROOKMAN: Summer? Okay. Mark.

19 MR. SHARP: Mark Sharp with Panasonic. 

20 Just point of clarification, perhaps Katharine and 

21 EPA could help with this. I seem to recall, 

22 relative to this pie chart, that for Energy Star

23 televisions it’s based on a five hours on 

24 measurement, not seven hours, is that correct?

25 MS. KAPLAN: Yes, that’s right.
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1 MR. SHARP: Okay. So I think relative 

2 then to Noah’s comment, I’m not sure that we agree 

3 that seven hours is the current universe. It may be 

4 five if it’s based on Energy Star currently.

5 MR. BROOKMAN: Katharine, please, follow 

6 on.

7 MS. KAPLAN: Katharine Kaplan, EPA’s 

8 Energy Star Program. Mark, you’re right, the 

9 assumption for TVs is five hours. It was based on 

10 the best available data -- I think we had some 

11 industry data and Nielson data. And the -- I think 

12 what’s sensible, I’ve heard even from CEA more 

13 recently, that there was an assumption that hour was 

14 too low, that we should be moving towards six or --

15 six was the last I heard. But anyway, I think we 

16 should really look -- dig in and see what kind of 

17 data we can get on actual usage patterns.

18 MR. BROOKMAN: Doug, do you want to follow 

19 on there?

20 MR. JOHNSON: I’m not aware of that 

21 assumption, Katharine, but it’s worth further 

22 discussion. Mark’s point, I think, is correct.

23 MR. BROOKMAN: Gary.

24 MR. LANGILLE: My understanding is also 

25 during the Energy Star analysis that there was this 
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1 reality that Noah elevated very early today, is that 

2 people would turn the TV off but forget to turn off 

3 the Set-Top Box. So we actually, I believe, several 

4 hours were actually added to try to accommodate that 

5 over an average of over many boxes in many 

6 households.

7 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you. I’m eager for 

8 us to try and address these issue boxes that you see 

9 on slide 26 in the printed version in front of you. 

10 Let’s see if we can address these a little more if 

11 we can. Adam Goldberg.

12 MR. A. GOLDBERG: Yeah, Adam Goldberg for 

13 TiVo. I think -- and it’s not directly written in 

14 the issue boxes on this slide, but in addition to 

15 service provider software on the Set-Top Boxes, I 

16 think the service provider network architecture has 

17 a big influence on the way that the Set-Top Boxes 

18 have to go. I mean, I think that Paul made this 

19 point earlier, that depending on how the network 

20 works, it affects how the Set-Top Boxes have to 

21 work. And so that needs to be considered as well, I 

22 think.

23 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Thank you. I have 

24 one more question coming from the web, which is, how 

25 are IP enabled (interface) Set-Top Boxes 
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1 contemplated under a DOE proposed standard?

2 MR. CYMBALSKY: That’s a later discussion.

3 MR. DOMMU: Yeah, that’s an important 

4 discussion that we’re planning for later in the day, 

5 and this is Jeremy Dommu.

6 MR. BROOKMAN: Great. Thank you. Okay. 

7 Andrew DeLaski.

8 MR. DeLASKI: To follow on to my earlier 

9 comment, so what I heard Greg say is that we need

10 more than one pie chart because there are different 

11 types -- if you’re going to annual energy 

12 consumption you may need more than one pie chart to 

13 represent these central boxes and then these client 

14 boxes. That’s what I interpreted that point to 

15 mean.

16 So back to Mark’s point. Mark, you said 

17 it’s five hours for the TV test method, or for the 

18 Set-Top Box test method?

19 MR. SHARP: TVs.

20 MR. DeLASKI: The TVs, okay. So this is 

21 accurate for what the Energy Star is for Set-Tops, 

22 what’s on the slide?

23 MR. SHARP: Yeah. Correct.

24 MR. DeLASKI: Thank you for clarifying 

25 that. I was just -- my point of confusion. So as I 
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1 hear, one thing that strikes me is that the DOE 

2 asked the question about -- this is one approach in 

3 annual energy consumption. I think another approach 

4 is to use watts in various modes --

5 MR. TSAO: Correct.

6 MR. DeLASKI: -- for the test method. And 

7 it strikes me, you know, that one of the things that 

8 would be probably a good way to go with this test 

9 method is to focus on the test method measuring 

10 watts in various modes, because then you could use 

11 the standard to apply some sort of weighting to 

12 that, based on the current knowledge at the time. I 

13 think that DOE took a similar approach with battery 

14 chargers. I think that’s a way that would enable --

15 create more flexibility for both the programs and 

16 the standards for various purposes, to be able to 

17 have, for marketing frankly, if you have a test 

18 method that focuses on watts as opposed to kilowatt 

19 hours, I think you have more flexibility down the 

20 road.

21 MR. TSAO: Yeah, I mean that’s definitely 

22 a possibility that DOE could consider for the 

23 metric.

24 MR. DOMMU: And I think -- this is Jeremy 

25 Dommu -- I think even to calculate typical energy 
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1 consumption in kilowatt hours, you’re going to have 

2 to, of course, calculate them in watts. So one way 

3 or another, the test procedure is going to 

4 definitely have to calculate what the power 

5 consumption is in watts.

6 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you. And you can see 

7 the issue box back up there on the screen. 

8 Additional comments on these queries? Yes, Noah.

9 MR. HOROWITZ: Sorry to weigh in again 

10 here. In terms of question two, depending how the 

11 either service provider under a manufacturer 

12 implements things makes a difference. So imagine if 

13 I hit the on/off button and it takes me to a light 

14 sleep, but if I push it and hold it for five or 15 

15 seconds, or hit it twice or something, I could get a 

16 different answer, depending how the software is set 

17 up. Very few consumers might do that, but we need 

18 to be cognizant of that.

19 MR. BROOKMAN: Noah, please remember to 

20 turn your microphone on. That wasn’t caught on the 

21 record.

22 MR. HOROWITZ: It matters how you push the 

23 button, both here --

24 MR. BROOKMAN: A good summary. Katharine, 

25 you want to push your button, please?
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1 MS. KAPLAN: Sure. I’m wondering if DOE 

2 has considered the implication of moving towards, 

3 rather than thin clients and no clients in the 

4 integration of Set-Top Box functionality into TVs? 

5 Would that kind of play in to this conversation and 

6 analysis?

7 MR. BROOKMAN: Jeremy.

8 MR. DOMMU: Yeah, I mean, I think we 

9 certainly welcome input on ways that we could 

10 determine what the metric is to measure. If, 

11 whatever the metric is, ultimately there is any 

12 number of technological options that could be used 

13 to meet it. So, you know, it wouldn’t specify one 

14 technology over another. So if there was no thin 

15 client, and there was a metric, it would essentially 

16 meet it because there is no power consumption, 

17 right?

18 MS. KAPLAN: This is Katharine from EPA. 

19 Does this have an implication for the TV test 

20 procedure? For example, I saw that technology at 

21 the Consumer Electronic Show this year.

22 MR. BROOKMAN: John.

23 MR. CYMBALSKY: John Cymbalsky. I think 

24 that would be integral to the TV is what you’re 

25 saying, so I think we’d have to look at all options 
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1 to measure that.

2 MR. BROOKMAN: Adam Goldberg.

3 MR. A. GOLDBERG: They covered it.

4 MR. BROOKMAN: They covered it. Gary.

5 MR. LANGILLE: Yeah, I think that -- to 

6 Katharine’s point -- given the time frame for all 

7 this, you know, it’s very likely that there may not 

8 be Set-Top Boxes in 2018. But besides that point, 

9 it is very important, I think, for DOE to be 

10 cognizant when they look at the new technology 

11 possibilities, of power consumed within the 

12 residence and then, you know, I mean, for instance, 

13 I could tell you right now I could make a Set-Top 

14 Box very efficient by a large margin if I pushed a 

15 lot of the functionality into the TV. But then, 

16 Mark from Panasonic, would be in here saying, hey, 

17 my energy consumption is rising fast.

18 The other thing I could do is push it out 

19 onto the curb, so it’s outside the residence. So I 

20 think it’s very important that as DOE considers new 

21 technology, that they -- you know, it’s sort of a 

22 balloon that sort of functions and, you know, just 

23 if you push on one side, it may make the Set-Top Box 

24 small, but now you have another nice refrigerator25 sized box from Verizon sitting out on the front of 
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1 your house. I do realize that you’re looking at 

2 inside the residence, but it is something to be 

3 aware of.

4 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Thank you. 

5 Additional comments, perhaps final comments on these 

6 two issue boxes, because we’re moving on. Okay. 

7 We’re moving on.

8 MR. TSAO: Okay. Thank you. The next 

9 part of the RFI had to do with sort of the network 

10 that the Set-Top Box was connected to. DOE has 

11 recognized sort of two different scenarios that a 

12 Set-Top Box could be tested. One, is on a live 

13 network, similar to what a consumer would actually 

14 do, so you obtain a subscription, connect the Set15 Top Box to it, and get it activated and test it in 

16 that mode. The advantage is that that would reflect 

17 typical usage that a consumer would see, and 

18 relatively simple test setup with low service 

19 provider involvement. The disadvantage being that 

20 DOE had some concerns that maybe the repeatability 

21 of this type of setup would be difficult due to the 

22 fact that it’s not as controlled of an environment. 

23 So some issues are whether the subscription is even 

24 available at a lab for testing, or any variation 

25 that may occur due to the time of day, weather, 
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1 geography, or any other thing like that. And the 

2 last issue again would be the video format would not 

3 be as controllable because it would just be sort of 

4 what a typical service provider network would 

5 provide.

6 An alternative method would be to use more 

7 of a closed simulated-type environment, where the 

8 head end is just sort of provided in conjunction 

9 with the Set-Top Box for testing. This would allow 

10 for more controlled environment and would not have -

11 - possibly have less variation. But it may be large 

12 or more costly to set up this type of -- to perform 

13 this type of test. It would require a lot of 

14 service provider involvement in that the equipment 

15 is necessarily complex to configure, and would not, 

16 you know, be easy to understand or transferable 

17 between different service providers. And it may not 

18 necessarily represent exactly what the customers’ 

19 typical viewing conditions would be like and whether 

20 or not it had all the available features that a 

21 normal live network would provide.

22 So at this time, we’re looking for comment 

23 as to, you know, one, whether or not there’s much of 

24 a difference between a live network test versus sort 

25 of a closed environment testing? And whether or not 
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1 for a live network test there are variation concerns 

2 or, you know, due to geographic location or time of 

3 day.

4 MR. BROOKMAN: Paul?

5 MR. GLIST: Paul Glist. I won’t be able 

6 to answer this question fully. I mean, we will be 

7 doing a lot in writing, but I think that there are 

8 some things you should account for in your own 

9 thinking. To take account of existing test 

10 facilities that have been created by the service 

11 providers. A good example, as you know, we’ve 

12 introduced CableLabs to you all, which has rolled up 

13 the many, many different flavors of cable 

14 architecture that exists in North America, in order 

15 to provide testing. And it is something that would 

16 be very difficult to replicate in the home, all 

17 those various settings.

18 The other thing that I think you should 

19 account for is that because Set-Top Boxes are 

20 typically purchased in wholesale quantities by 

21 service providers, and there is a compliance and 

22 acceptance and quality assurance process that 

23 precedes ordering and acceptance, that it’s very 

24 hard for me to imagine folding live testing as the 

25 primary method into the actual acquisition cycle. 
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1 In other words, because beta boxes don’t show up in 

2 live homes -- live plant would be a bad idea. So 

3 I’m just posing those as subsidiary questions to 

4 this and we will try to answer this when we get to 

5 writing.

6 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you. Adam Goldberg.

7 MR. A. GOLDBERG: Yeah. Adam Goldberg for 

8 TIVO. The one thing we need to, I think, keep in 

9 mind is the burden to actually do the test, and in 

10 particular, whether the lab that’s doing the test is 

11 even in North America. For example, if I was 

12 building -- if I was building boxes in Taiwan, it 

13 would be very difficult to run tests against Direct 

14 TV and EchoStar satellites on the wrong side of the 

15 planet, for example.

16 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you. Noah.

17 MR. HOROWITZ: I hit the button. Noah 

18 Horowitz, NRDC. Your first -- I’m sorry, your 

19 second question, time of day. Time of day does 

20 matter. On some satellite systems they push movies 

21 in the middle of the night. If you didn’t specify 

22 the time, you wouldn’t capture that energy use. 

23 Similarly, the EPG, the electronic program guide, 

24 that might be pushed once a day, once a week, every 

25 20 minutes, depending how they do it, so you need to 
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1 account for that. Part of that also will be dealt 

2 with in what you assume for a duty cycle. 

3 We don’t have a firm -- we’re agnostic if 

4 you will, whether it’s a closed or an open system. 

5 I think what’s critical is, are you adequately 

6 simulating or testing as if the box were hooked up 

7 to Time Warner or ComCast, for example, on the cable 

8 side, and if CableLabs has the capability to do that 

9 and it’s representing up to date head end, we don’t 

10 have a problem with that. But you need to make sure 

11 that you’re really representing what’s going to 

12 happen in the field.

13 MR. BROOKMAN: Do you have any opinion 

14 about what’s more doable?

15 MR. HOROWITZ: Not at this time.

16 MR. BROOKMAN: Gary.

17 MR. LANGILLE: I was just going to comment 

18 that you may find that for different types of 

19 services you may have to take a different approach. 

20 Like, for instance, to bring in the whole cable head 

21 end, and all the flavors to some lab somewhere, 

22 would be extraordinarily expensive and most likely 

23 not doable. But it’s not -- if you’re in the US, 

24 it’s not very hard to throw up a satellite dish to 

25 get a live feed. So, you know, you may find that 
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1 depending on the product type, in one case you can 

2 test in a live environment, but in another case it 

3 doesn’t make sense because of -- mostly because of 

4 the cost is a major issue.

5 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Final comments on 

6 these two issue boxes? For those of you that are 

7 wondering, in about 15 minutes or so we’re going to 

8 take a break. So hang in there. Allen.

9 MR. TSAO: Okay. Thanks. The other 

10 question we had brought up in the Request for 

11 Information had to do with the video source of the 

12 Set-Top Box and how the video source would impact 

13 the energy consumption of the Set-Top Box. So as an 

14 example, I’m just going to describe how Energy Star

15 outlines what video to use when conducting the 

16 testing. They outline three reference channels with 

17 three different content types, as well as different 

18 resolutions.

19 So two channels would be a standard def 

20 resolution, like 4ADI (ph), and one of the channels 

21 would have to be at some high def channel if the 

22 Set-Top Box supported it of 720P.

23 So what we’re looking for in comment on 

24 this part is just sort of, one, with those channels, 

25 do service providers offer sort of different bid 
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1 rates or frame rates or just general network 

2 throughput for the same channel? So would CNN in 

3 high def be similar across, or different across 

4 service providers? And additionally, would the 

5 content itself make a difference? So like would a 

6 sports content impact the energy consumption of a 

7 Set-Top Box differently from, you know, a news 

8 channel where the content is more static?

9 MR. BROOKMAN: Gary.

10 MR. LANGILLE: This is Gary from EchoStar. 

11 It’s been my experience that you cannot count on the 

12 same channel being the same technical specifications 

13 for the video stream across -- between any two 

14 providers. Not only that, but it actually changes 

15 over time. Like, for instance, in a satellite 

16 system, and cable systems will be there soon, I’m 

17 sure, we actually use what is called variable bit 

18 rate system, whereby we actually mix maybe up to 10,

19 12, 15 channels together, and the system actually 

20 analyzes which channel happens to have the most 

21 activity and it actually gives that channel more 

22 bits than the other channels. So we can vary from -

23 - you know, high definition could go from 19 

24 megabits a second, but if it’s just a person 

25 standing there giving the news, it may go down to 
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1 one megabit a second, depending on what it requires. 

2 So this will be a challenge for all of us to figure 

3 out how to do this.

4 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you for that comment. 

5 Paul.

6 MR. GLIST: This is really a question for 

7 you. Do you have a level of significance that we 

8 should be looking for? So if I determine that yes, 

9 all of these things change, but not by much, how 

10 much is “much” for your purposes?

11 MR. TSAO: I’d say we would like to look 

12 at that data and -- to determine whether or not it 

13 matters. Like, if we’re talking about something 

14 that’s less than one percent then it’s possible we 

15 would exclude it. I don’t know if there’s 

16 necessarily a fixed value where we say it matters or 

17 not. Because obviously, it’s a combination of a lot 

18 of things. We would look at, holistically, probably 

19 the entire test procedure in terms of how repeatable 

20 the end result would be. So that would be 

21 contributions from different things like time of day 

22 or the video source or things like that. So I’d say 

23 we would like as much data as possible so we can 

24 aggregate that and make a determination.

25 MR. BROOKMAN: Noah.
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1 MR. HOROWITZ: Noah with NRDC. Two things 

2 that we think might make a difference is whether the 

3 signal is HD or not. And secondly, and not shown 

4 here is whether that content is 3D. If we’re 

5 looking six years in the future, we might see 

6 increased penetration of content that’s 3D and 

7 typically that’s higher processing requirements and 

8 proportional power needs.

9 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you. These comments 

10 are very on point and much appreciated. Are we --

11 MR. TSAO: There’s a couple more follow 

12 ons.

13 MR. BROOKMAN: And I want you to tell us 

14 what we’re missing, okay?

15 MR. TSAO: Okay. 

16 MR. BROOKMAN: So keep going.

17 MR. TSAO: All right. So the next 

18 comments are sort of -- another option to consider 

19 in the test procedure is that the -- is if the bit 

20 rates are variable, is it possible the test 

21 procedure could record whatever parameters were 

22 important to energy consumption to be factored into 

23 the standards. So if it was determined that yeah, 

24 maybe it varies, but the test procedure may need to 

25 include that. Is that something that’s doable? So 
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1 we’re looking for comment on whether, you know, this 

2 kind of information can be easily measured, or 

3 there’s a way to measure that kind of information? 

4 And then, in general, any other parameters that may 

5 impact the video source which would impact the 

6 energy consumption of the Set-Top Box we’re looking 

7 for comment on.

8 MR. BROOKMAN: Paul.

9 MR. GLIST: Paul Glist again. As I look 

10 forward to the time table for implementation and I 

11 think about variabilities, I’m having a hard time 

12 knowing what are the devices for which we are trying 

13 to establish test procedures. So right now we may 

14 have an intuitive sense of what a Set-Top Box is, 

15 but I don’t even know if you want a test procedure 

16 for Roxie or Roku (ph), and looking at the time 

17 frame, I’m not sure how different the actual IP 

18 transport might be between current service providers 

19 and edge providers. So can you help us understand 

20 what is the -- what’s the category of devices for 

21 which we are trying to develop test procedures?

22 MR. BROOKMAN: Jeremy Dommu.

23 MR. DOMMU: Yeah, I mean it’s a great 

24 question and it’s one of the primary determinations 

25 we need to make right off the bat, the discussion of 
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1 what product classes we establish. For each product 

2 class we establish there would be a unique standard, 

3 and unique analysis performed. I think right after 

4 the break we’re planning on getting into that 

5 conversation, so we’ll push that comment back until 

6 then.

7 MR. BROOKMAN: Thanks for the question. 

8 You see the two comment boxes here. Additional 

9 information related to these two. Yes, please.

10 MR. JOSEPH: Kuriacose Joseph of Direct 

11 TV. In addition to parameters of the input video 

12 stream, you know, there’s also the question of how 

13 the customer has configured the box at the output, 

14 and different Set-Top Boxes, different products, 

15 they have different combination of things -- of 

16 selections you can make, so how is all that going to 

17 be drafted into this analysis, combination of watts 

18 and coming to the box first and what customers have 

19 set.

20 MR. BROOKMAN: Input and output. Yeah. 

21 Okay. 

22 MR. JOSEPH: So this is an issue for 

23 testing.

24 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Thank you. Nothing 

25 more? Okay. 
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1 MR. TSAO: Okay. The next question in the 

2 RFI concerns sort of the DVR testing, you know, what 

3 the DVR -- there are different modes of operation, 

4 such as pausing and fast forward, or playing and 

5 play back of the DVR. So Energy Star, for example, 

6 in their test procedure has outlined sort of a 

7 certain percentage of time that during playback that 

8 these operations should occur, generally. Like five 

9 percent of the time is for pause, ten percent for 

10 fast forward or rewind, and the majority of the 

11 time, for playback. So when DOE is considering sort 

12 of the impact of the DVR on energy consumption, we 

13 have some questions about that, basically.

14 So we’re not sure if sort of the -- that 

15 the order of the operations matter in terms of the 

16 energy consumption, or whether or not that sort of 

17 human element, when conducting the testing, in terms 

18 of how much -- when I say it played, or I play and 

19 then periodically pause or do I pause all at once, 

20 or anything like that? And whether or not that 

21 would sort of impact the repeatability of the test? 

22 So one aspect is we could separate on to separate 

23 modes and measure each mode of operation separately, 

24 as alternative.

25 But in general at this point we’re just 
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1 seeking comment on the DVR testing, on one, you 

2 know, whether or not this is an issue for 

3 repeatability of testing, and two, whether or not 

4 those usage profiles on DVR seem to make sense or if 

5 there is any data on what a typical usage profile 

6 would look like.

7 MR. BROOKMAN: I’ll start with Noah first.

8 MR. HOROWITZ: Noah with NRDC. One thing 

9 that’s missing here is recording time. How much 

10 power does it take when you record a show? Is that 

11 the same or different than when you’re playing it 

12 back? And that also has an impact on your duty 

13 cycle. It might be, if it’s a one hour show, it’s 

14 one hour to record it, and if you do watch it, it’s 

15 another hour to play it back, so when we looked at 

16 that pie chart from Energy Star, I don’t know if 

17 that was considered. Also, not to pick on TiVo, but 

18 when it first came out it had a thing called 

19 speculative recording, so if you watched the Andy 

20 Griffith Show, it would automatically look for 

21 anything with Andy Griffith or Don Knotts. I might

22 be dating myself here. But as a result, it might be 

23 constantly recording and using a lot more power, and 

24 if that feature is enabled or disabled upon 

25 shipment, that’s another consideration.
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1 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Yes, Gary.

2 MR. LANGILLE: I was just going to 

3 comment, and I think Paul made an excellent point 

4 earlier is that a lot of this has to do with at what 

5 level are we considering something significant? I 

6 mean I’m sure if you, I mean for the most part DVR 

7 means your disk drive is doing different things 

8 depending on what you’re doing, and how often you’re 

9 accessing it. If you look at the microlevel, of 

10 course the energy’s going to change, it doesn’t 

11 matter what you do. Right? But, you know, the fact 

12 of the matter is, if I hook up a, you know, I bring 

13 one of those kilowatts up to my home and I hook it 

14 up to my DVR, it doesn’t matter what I do to it, as 

15 long as that disk is moving, it pretty much stays 

16 the same. So I’m sure, you know, in the middle 

17 range it’s moving up and down, but when you’re 

18 looking at a box that’s maybe 20 watts, it seems 

19 pretty insignificant and it may not even be valid.

20 So I would suggest that to really get 

21 answers on these things, because does this matter or 

22 not is going to be a question at a high level for 

23 testing that we really need to decide up front, is 

24 it one -- anything less than one percent we should 

25 consider insignificant, so we would answer the 
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1 question. If it’s less than one percent variation 

2 then the answer is no, it doesn’t matter. We should 

3 try to establish that level.

4 MR. BROOKMAN: Charlie Stephens. I was 

5 wondering the data you’re gathering, whether it goes 

6 to that level of detail.

7 MR. STEPHENS: It might go to that level 

8 of detail provided we can correlate the time stamp 

9 on each event that occurs with what’s happening 

10 physically or with what the consumer is doing with 

11 it. This is one of the places where we’re going to 

12 try to establish a protocol for matching up a time 

13 stamp on the data with an event. I’m doing that 

14 laundry right now and we may push it into consumer 

15 electronics.

16 MR. BROOKMAN: Adam Goldberg.

17 MR. A. GOLDBERG: This is Adam for TiVo. 

18 I think it’s really, really difficult to look out a 

19 five or six years for things like this. But I think 

20 one thing that we should try to keep in mind somehow 

21 is that today, generally or maybe exclusively, DVR 

22 is using rotating magnetic media like hard drives. 

23 In the past couple of years, there’s been a real 

24 push in certain cases to solid state drives, which 

25 my understanding is, both a fair bit more energy 
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1 efficient and it’s completely irrelevant whether 

2 it’s seeking to a different part of the drive or 

3 reading sequentially, that is to say things like 

4 fast forward, and playback may have absolutely no 

5 difference. But the problem with solid state drives 

6 is they’re really kind of expensive just now, but 

7 hey gosh, six years is four turns of Moore’s Law and 

8 so it’s easy to see where we might be into SSDs and 

9 out of them and into the next thing by then. 

10 So I’m not sure worrying too much about 

11 DVR modes is worth spending a lot of time hitting 

12 our head about. I know Energy Star certainly does, 

13 and it makes sense for Energy Star because those 

14 specs can revise much faster than a DOE standard 

15 can.

16 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Katharine.

17 MR. DeLASKI: Just a follow-on. If I may. 

18 I mean I think the group ought to know just about 

19 the effect of a DOE test method being preemptive and 

20 being the test method that Energy Star and other 

21 programs have to use, I think does speak to the need 

22 to address modes, even if they’re not going to be --

23 even if six years from now -- it will matter sooner 

24 in other programs, so we still have to muscle with 

25 these questions.
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1 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you, Andrew. 

2 Katharine.

3 MS. KAPLAN: Just two very minor points. 

4 One, following Adam on your comment, my 

5 understanding from our computer stakeholders who 

6 have been talking about solid state for a while is 

7 that the price has been coming down, and I would 

8 imagine in five years it would really be a non9 issue.

10 And then I wanted to point out that, you

11 know, yes, Energy Star now focuses on these various 

12 aspects of the operations of the DVR, including -- I 

13 remember there was a question about whether or not 

14 we recorded -- we covered recording as well as 

15 playback, and we do. So we cover all of the 

16 different functions.

17 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Thank you. Let’s 

18 proceed.

19 MR. TSAO: Okay. The next topic concerns 

20 more the satellite Set-Top Boxes as -- this is the 

21 low noise block, our LNB units that are attached to 

22 satellites and these are used, you know, in general 

23 they improve the signal reception or convert the 

24 satellite signal to be accessible by the Set-Top 

25 Box.
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1 One of the issues that we face with --

2 when looking at test procedures is that the LNBs can 

3 be powered separately from the set top box, but they 

4 could also be powered directly by the Set-Top Box 

5 through the coaxial connection. So in general, for 

6 whether or not this -- the question comes up, 

7 whether or not it should be included in the test 

8 procedure for the energy measurement, and the first 

9 aspect would be how much power does the LNB consume 

10 relative to the Set-Top Box, so how significant is 

11 it? 

12 And if DOE were to sort of include the LNB 

13 power consumption, are there additional factors 

14 around the testing that would have to be considered 

15 to make it a representative test, and a repeatable 

16 test? And if it were excluded, sort of what options 

17 would there be for testing it, given that sometimes 

18 they are powered directly by the Set-Top Box? So is 

19 it possible that they could always be powered 

20 separately by another box? Is it possible to test 

21 them without them connected? So, I guess that’s, in 

22 general, what we’re opening up for comment and 

23 discussion about.

24 MR. BROOKMAN: Gary.

25 MR. LANGILLE: Gary Langille, Dish Network 
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1 this time. The issue of LNBs is one that is a 

2 little bit complex because it can -- the number of 

3 LNBs in a household changes by geography, it changes 

4 by what subscription package that particular 

5 subscriber wants, and it also changed, frankly, due 

6 to the digital TV transition. When that transition 

7 happened, it’s great we went from analog to digital, 

8 the problem is that all of us service providers had 

9 to carry both, and not only that, but then we added 

10 all those HD content, which was like five times the 

11 band width requirement. So what happened was, we 

12 had to launch more satellites and put more 

13 satellites up there, which meant we needed more 

14 LNBs. So we will include in our comments, you know, 

15 information about LNBs themselves. I mean, frankly, 

16 we all buy them from the same one or two companies, 

17 so it’s not like a big secret. 

18 However, the issue I am concerned about 

19 is, for the satellite industry perspective, is that, 

20 you know, once this procedure’s in place and ratings 

21 are given for Set-Top Boxes, people will tend to 

22 compare one versus the other. And in a satellite 

23 architecture, it just so happens that the network 

24 receiving device happens to be in the household. 

25 But we don’t have any cables in the ground. We 
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1 don’t have amplifiers on every corner, and we don’t 

2 have these refrigerator sized boxes in every 

3 neighborhood. Okay. So, we just don’t want to see 

4 a satellite is disadvantaged when it’s looked at as 

5 an energy -- from an energy perspective, because 

6 actually overall, the energy efficiency of a 

7 satellite distribution system is far, far, far, more 

8 efficient than the alternatives. And we have solar 

9 power head ends, right, flying around in space. We 

10 have no infrastructure in neighborhoods. I mean, , 

11 you know, we have no -- we don’t dig up streets, we 

12 don’t do any of that stuff, so that’s what we’re 

13 concerned about. So whether it’s included or not, 

14 and the regulation of the LNB -- we’re more 

15 concerned about how it’s presented at the end, than 

16 we are whether you want a submission or not.

17 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Thank you. Noah.

18 MR. HOROWITZ: Noah with NRDC. I think, 

19 in almost all cases, there might be a few 

20 exceptions, the LNB is indeed powered by the Set-Top 

21 Box, and we don’t understand why you would 

22 disconnect it as part of the test. Although I’m 

23 sympathetic to Gary’s point, I think after lunch, I 

24 think we’re going to talk about scope and what’s in 

25 or out. Is it just the box, and if there are many 
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1 boxes around the house, in this case, the LNB or the 

2 gateway box Telco provider might provide, I think 

3 that’s fair game how much of that should be in. But 

4 the LNB, I think, is critical to simulate the actual 

5 operation, so I don’t know how you could disconnect 

6 the LNB and appropriately measure the energy use of 

7 the Set-Top Box. So I’m a little confused there.

8 Also, it’s possible that a home that has 

9 multiple LNBs could have an implementation where one 

10 of the LNBs turns off in the middle of the night, or 

11 powers down and we want to encourage that, and the 

12 only way to do that is to measure it.

13 MR. BROOKMAN: Gary, follow on?

14 MR. LANGILLE: Yeah, just a quick follow 

15 on. I was going to mention, or I forgot to mention 

16 that there’s various configurations that are offered 

17 in terms of whether the LNB is powered from the Set18 Top Box or powered from a separate power supply. 

19 There’s advantages and disadvantages to each 

20 configuration. For instance, if it’s powered from 

21 the Set-Top Box, if we get to the point where we can 

22 turn that power off, turn the Set-Top Box off when 

23 it’s not being used, or go into a reduced power 

24 mode, then the LNB is automatically turned off.

25 The other point is that when you go with a 
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1 separate power supply, now you need some 

2 communication mechanisms, some standard develop that 

3 Set-Top Boxes in a home can all communicate with 

4 each other so that one doesn’t tell it to shut off 

5 and the other one needs it. The other thing is that 

6 if you go -- if you separate the power supply, 

7 introduce a single point of failure. When you have 

8 it supplied by any of the boxes within a home, if 

9 one box fails, the other two boxes pick it up 

10 automatically. So all of that comes into sort of 

11 the dynamics of how you design a system. It has to 

12 be considered.

13 MR. TSAO: Right.

14 MR. BROOKMAN: Noah.

15 MR. HOROWITZ: Quick question for either 

16 Gary or Navigant. How much power are we talking

17 about? Are these two to four watts 24 hours a day?

18 MR. LANGILLE: I would say that, you know, 

19 the other thing is that LNB isn’t an LNB and an LNB. 

20 Most LNBs today actually are an LNB plus an RF 

21 switch, plus all sorts of other electronics. So 

22 they’ve changed over time. But you could be a 

23 couple watts each, so if you have three satellites, 

24 you’re starting to get up to four, six, eight, could 

25 even be ten watts.
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1 MR. HOROWITZ: And those tend to be on all 

2 day?

3 MR. LANGILLE: And these days, they’re 

4 mostly on 24/7 because we have to maintain 

5 continuous communication with the satellite, but 

6 that’s for a different discussion later, I guess.

7 MR. BROOKMAN: Let’s just take additional 

8 comments on these issue boxes you see up on the 

9 screen, 10, 11, and 12. Okay. 

10 I think we’re due for a break. It’s now 

11 almost ten minutes after 11, let’s break for 15 

12 minutes, which means we’ll resume at 11:25. How 

13 many of you are new to the Forestall Building? 

14 Several of you are. Okay. You must wear this badge 

15 inside the building or someone will escort you 

16 somewhere else. There are rest rooms on both ends 

17 of the hall. There’s a coffee shop down on the 

18 ground floor directly below us on the opposite side 

19 of the hallway, but you need to go quickly to make 

20 it back here in 15 minutes.

21 (Whereupon, at 11:08 a.m., the meeting was 

22 recessed for a 21 minute period.)

23 MR. BROOKMAN: So now we’re moving on. 

24 We’re really, remarkably, despite starting a few 

25 minutes late, quite close to being on schedule. 
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1 We’re going to hear Standards Rulemaking Analysis 

2 and back to Jeremy.

3 Standards Rulemaking Analysis

4 MR. DOMMU: Okay. So we’ve talked about 

5 test procedures, we gave you the overview, and now 

6 we’re going to move forward and we’re going to talk 

7 about each analysis, each assessment that goes into 

8 the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in more detail. 

9 So we will begin with the Market and Technology 

10 Assessment.

11 Market and Technology Assessment

12 Now many of you have seen a preliminary 

13 version of the Market and Technology Assessment, 

14 which we posted on the Set-Top Boxes Network 

15 Equipment rulemaking website. So you’ve had the 

16 opportunity to peruse that. As I mentioned 

17 previously, that’s a preliminary version. What’s 

18 ultimately published in the Notice of Proposed 

19 Rulemaking will be different and will be updated, 

20 and there’s additional content that needs to go into 

21 that. 

22 So the purpose of the Market and 

23 Technology Assessment is to characterize the 

24 markets, the relevant industries, and the measures 

25 to improve efficiency. So we do this by identifying 
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1 and characterizing the manufacturers and service 

2 providers of Set-Top Boxes. So we look at trends in 

3 the industry, estimate shipments. We analyzed all 

4 the existing regulatory and non-regulatory 

5 initiatives applicable to equipment covered under 

6 the rulemaking. We identified technologies that 

7 could improve efficiency, and one of the primary 

8 outputs of the Market and Technology Assessment is 

9 the establishment of product classes. 

10 In the version that’s on line in the 

11 rulemaking website, we do not establish preliminary 

12 what those product classes are. Many questions so 

13 far today have come up asking about this product 

14 class issue. So this determination of what product 

15 classes are is one of the major decisions we need to 

16 make as we begin the rulemaking process, and it’s an 

17 issue that we very much welcome your inputs on, 

18 because we will perform a separate analysis and 

19 we’ll establish a unique conservation standard for 

20 each of the product classes that’s determined. 

21 Product Classes

22 So when necessary, the Department of 

23 Energy divides covered products into classes by the 

24 type of energy used, the capacity of the product, 

25 and any other performance-related feature that 
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1 justifies different standard levels, such as 

2 features that affect consumer utility. 

3 So the relationship here is in the Market 

4 and Technology Assessment, one of the primary 

5 outputs would be product classes, but we’d also look 

6 at these technology options. And a technology 

7 option would include any component technology that 

8 can reduce energy consumption. So, for example, a 

9 low power CPU or a hard disk in a Set-Top Box could 

10 be an example of a technology option.

11 We then conduct a screening analysis, and 

12 we’ll talk about that shortly, but essentially what 

13 that does is it screens out those technology options 

14 which we aren’t considering and design options that 

15 are technology feasible and could be considered as a 

16 measure to improve product efficiency. So design 

17 options can include innovative ways of designing 

18 products using standard components. So maybe a 

19 multi-room configuration could be an example of a 

20 design option in Set-Top Boxes.

21 At the end of the day, regardless of the 

22 determination of what the technology option, what’s 

23 a design option, in the engineering analysis we will 

24 establish a different efficiency level based on the 

25 metric that we’re going to base the standard on for 
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1 each candidate standard level. So for each 

2 potentially design option, we would have a different 

3 standard level, and we’ll talk more about this in 

4 engineering analysis. And for each of those 

5 standard levels, we would analyze the effect on 

6 energy efficiency and cost for each of the product 

7 classes that’s determined. So product classes is a 

8 key determination.

9 So the way that Energy Star does it, and 

10 this is something that we’ve looked at in the Market 

11 and Technology Assessment, they characterize Set-Top 

12 Boxes into base functionalities such as cable, 

13 satellite, IP-TV, or Telecom, and additional 

14 allowances. So, high definition DVR, or multi-room. 

15 For example to earn an Energy Star label, you would 

16 look at the base functionality and any additional 

17 functionality that exists for Set-Top Box model to 

18 determine what energy consumption it needs to meet 

19 to earn the Energy Star label. So you’d add 

20 everything up. So if you had a cable Set-Top Box 

21 that has additional functionality of advanced video 

22 processing, cable card DVR and HD, you’d add up all 

23 the associated numbers with that model to determine 

24 what the energy consumption would be to be certified 

25 as Energy Star, based on that version number.
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1 For Department of Energy, as we consider 

2 energy conservation standards, we would prescribe a 

3 unique conservation level for each product class. 

4 So we wouldn’t necessarily use this allowance system 

5 that Energy Star did, because each product class 

6 that we determine would have a different 

7 conservation level. What we could consider doing, 

8 though, is establishing a new product class for each 

9 combination of base functionality and additional 

10 features, based on the Energy Star definitions, 

11 provided each one of those product classes meets 

12 DOE’s criteria for being a product class. 

13 So one thing we could do is instead of 

14 taking every possible iteration of this chart, we 

15 could focus on those permutations that are most 

16 commonly seen in the market when the standard 

17 becomes applicable. So there’s a lot of decisions 

18 that we need to make in order to determine what 

19 product classes to look at.

20 Here is an example, and I just want to 

21 stress that kind of this exercise in these next 

22 couple slides that I’m going to show you are 

23 examples. This is in no way a preliminary 

24 determination of what we think product classes 

25 should be. We very much welcome your input on this 
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1 important determination. But I think it’s good to 

2 kind of go through this exercise to show what some 

3 of these issues that we have to look at would be.

4 So here is one way that we could 

5 potentially do product classes, and we’ll go through 

6 the next couple slides, focus first on cable and 

7 then on satellite, and then on IP. But for cable, 

8 we looked at in the future, we’re assuming, and this 

9 is obviously purely an example, that advanced video 

10 processing, high definition, and cable card would be 

11 included in all future cable Set-Top Boxes. So 

12 regardless of the product class, we could say let’s 

13 just assume that it has those three different 

14 additional functionalities. We also are saying that 

15 removable media does not require a different product 

16 class, DVRs would include multi-shim and multi-room 

17 functionality. Home network interface and docks 

18 would be combined into a single networking 

19 functionality.

20 So by way of example here, if this is what 

21 we were to go with, we’re not to say that you need 

22 to have all of those features to meet the product 

23 class. So like cable base, we’re saying it’s high 

24 def, and in this example we would say all Set-Top 

25 Boxes in the standard would be assumed to have high 
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1 definition, but if one was standard definition, it 

2 would still be included in that base product class, 

3 just essentially, if standard definition uses less 

4 energy than high definition, ... we’ll see what the 

5 market share is and we welcome that input to help us 

6 determine what those product classes are.

7 Again, now moving on to satellite. Here 

8 are some additional assumptions -- and again, all 

9 for illustrative purposes here. I just think it’s 

10 important to kind of present something of what 

11 product classes could look like to kind of tease out 

12 the issues that we need to determine. So here we’d 

13 say advanced video processing in HD again, would be 

14 included. Removable media does not require a 

15 separate product class and that’s true for what we 

16 said in cable too, and that means, like, if there is 

17 a DVD player, a Blue Ray tape player built into a 

18 future Set-Top Box, that we wouldn’t necessarily 

19 build our conservation standard to include the 

20 energy consumption and have a test procedure include 

21 testing the playback of a removable media device. 

22 DVRs would include multi-stream and multi-room 

23 functionality again. So that would say, you know, 

24 we’ve seen most prevalent that multi-stream and 

25 multi-room functionality correlates with DVRs. 
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1 And by the way, I should have mentioned, 

2 we based this kind of determination looking at 

3 Energy Star’s qualified product list, so we’re 

4 looking for the most common correlations of 

5 functionalities, and this is kind of just -- this is 

6 what we based this on. Again, it’s an example, and 

7 we welcome your feedback.

8 Again, home network interface for 

9 satellite product classes would not require 

10 different product class, but may be folded into the 

11 DVR-based type. We welcome your input on that.

12 When we go to IP or Telecom, again, the 

13 same assumption of advanced video processing, high 

14 def and home network interface, the same assumption 

15 about not including removable media. IP boxes can 

16 provide multi-stream and multi-room independent of 

17 DVR functionality. We saw that one analyzing the 

18 Energy Star qualified product list. So we kind of 

19 separated that one into four potential product 

20 classes for IP here, based on whether it’s multi21 room, DVR or DVR with multi-room.

22 And then finally, other product classes we 

23 could look at, thin client interrestial (ph) could 

24 potentially have their own product class. 

25 So that’s an overview, and I know there 
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1 have already been many questions and comments today, 

2 so we’ll open up the floor now, and we very much 

3 welcome your input on the establishment of product 

4 classes with any of these following four issues:

5 • What product classes should be considered,

6 • how many classes to consider,

7 • potential methods to combine or reduce the

8 number of product classes, and

9 • feedback on the impact of baseline equipment 

10 class

11 • feedback on the market share

12 • comment on the consideration of Energy Star’s 

13 definition of base functionalities, and 

14 • additional features.

15 MR. BROOKMAN: Adam Goldberg.

16 MR. A. GOLDBERG: Yes, excuse me. This 

17 sort of scheme of product classes, is this the way 

18 that things have to be done in the -- in an eventual 

19 regulation, or could it be done sort of more similar 

20 to what Energy Star does with feature allowances and 

21 a base type?

22 MR. DOMMU: I’ll let Celia with General 

23 Counsel answer that question.

24 MS. SHER: Well, we haven’t determined if 
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1 we would set product classes at all. Like I said, 

2 this is just a preliminary information-gathering 

3 stage. But if we were going to separate out by 

4 classes, under EPCO we have the authority to do it 

5 by product class, and to focus on, you know, 

6 performance-related features that would justify a 

7 different standard level, the capacity of the 

8 project. We don’t necessarily have the authority to 

9 do what Energy Star does under our statute. So, for 

10 separate -- so we would go -- we haven’t determined 

11 whether we’re doing product classes, but we can’t 

12 necessarily do what Energy Star does.

13 MR. A. GOLDBERG: Can’t necessarily do

14 what Energy Star does. Does that mean you -- you 

15 don’t know whether you can or not, or you can or you 

16 can’t? I’m sorry.

17 MS. SHER: No, that’s okay. I mean, we’ll 

18 address this at the next stage of the rulemaking, in 

19 our Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, in the event that 

20 we do decide to separate out Set-Top Boxes into 

21 classes. But right now under our statute, we have 

22 the authority -- we have the authority to separate 

23 out into product classes. We haven’t determine 

24 whether we will do that yet.

25 MR. DeLASKI: Just to follow on to Adam’s 
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1 question --

2 MR. BROOKMAN: Andrew DeLaski.

3 MR. DeLASKI: It seems to me that there’s 

4 no reason why you couldn’t have a -- the 

5 architecture of it couldn’t be why you couldn’t have 

6 a product which has one set of features as a certain 

7 class. You add another function, it’s now in a new 

8 class, and that new class would have its own 

9 standard. So I’m not quite sure I get the 

10 distinction. I read DOE’s documents, but I’m not 

11 sure why the document made a big fuss about why they 

12 can’t do what EPA had done. But what is clear is 

13 that, in my experience, that for a product to have a 

14 different standard, for a widget to have, you know, 

15 to be allowed to use 20 kilowatt hours per year 

16 instead of 25, means they’re in two different 

17 classes. So as you add a functionality, that would 

18 be a new class.

19 MR. BROOKMAN: Paul.

20 MR. GLIST: Let me give you an example 

21 that maybe can help us focus on this. So, let’s 

22 suppose that the world is divided into multiple 

23 classes based on functionality and features. But in 

24 a world where those devices are connected to service 

25 providers who invent and add new functionalities by 
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1 software download, that might, in fact, affect the 

2 performance of the device. What then -- how does 

3 that fit into a model of -- I mean is it, like, can 

4 we not represent the energy consumption anymore 

5 because that invention hasn’t been tested? I don’t 

6 understand how all that fits together for this 

7 market. So can someone help me? Anyone?

8 MR. DeLASKI: So what you’re saying, Paul, 

9 is -- this is Andrew again -- so you’re saying the 

10 energy consumption might change after the product is 

11 deployed to the field?

12 MR. GLIST: Right. This is very common in 

13 how -- because these things are dynamically 

14 interacting with service providers who -- Gary and I 

15 are competing all the time, we’re trying to invent 

16 new stuff that consumers want.

17 MR. DeLASKI: Right.

18 MR. GLIST: So whatever features you take 

19 a snapshot of today in this subdivided world, will 

20 change on products that are actually in the field. 

21 And so I don’t know how to understand how to fit 

22 that model into even subdivided product 

23 classifications.

24 MR. BROOKMAN: Charlie Stephens.

25 MR. STEPHENS: Charlie Stephens. I sense 
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1 that no one will commit to anything here, so I’ll 

2 just make some observations about what’s happened in 

3 the past with other product types. When that sort 

4 of thing would happen, typically, the manufacturer 

5 would have two choices, and the provider together --

6 I mean, you guys don’t do this without a 

7 manufacturer, I presume. You know, you have to 

8 agree on what capability the box has before you can 

9 use it, I presume. You would have two choices --

10 well, I know that it has some functionalities that 

11 you can then use and change in the future, but you 

12 have two choices based on what I’ve seen in the 

13 past. You either adjust the energy consumption of 

14 the whole thing so that you stay within the existing 

15 limit of that class as you change it, or you can 

16 petition to DOE to make it a new class, and you can 

17 petition to test it under a different regime and

18 represent its energy use. There are a number of 

19 products that have gotten waivers on a temporary 

20 basis until some decision is made about, you know, 

21 whether it is a new class or whether for some period 

22 of time it’ll have to tested in a different way.

23 MR. BROOKMAN: Neal, go ahead.

24 MR. N. GOLDBERG: Neal Goldberg, NCTA. 

25 But the problem with that scenario, the third option 
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1 is that the consumer doesn’t get the benefit of the 

2 new service. But the problem, even if you went for 

3 a waiver is that, as Paul said, cable is in 

4 competition with the Telco TVs, with the satellite 

5 folks, and it’s a very intense competitive industry. 

6 We roll out innovation as soon as we can, and I 

7 don’t think it behooves the consumer to have to wait 

8 for a waiver from DOE or anyone else to get the 

9 benefit of the new services.

10 MR. BROOKMAN: Gary, go ahead.

11 MR. LANGILLE: I was just going to comment 

12 that it will happen, not might. What Paul said will 

13 happen. It will happen. It’s been the history of 

14 the industry. It has never not been so. I can give 

15 you an example where Dish shipped products for years 

16 that an Ethernet port of the back. It wasn’t even 

17 turned on, it was never used, but that was by design 

18 because we knew that eventually we would offer an 

19 optional, if the customer connects that to their 

20 internet, they now have access to a whole library of 

21 content. And now that’s offered in every single 

22 box, even boxes that were shipped five years ago, 

23 six years ago. You know, it’s a whole new feature. 

24 Probably, like I said, depending on the level we’re 

25 looking at for energy differences, it could have an 
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1 energy impact, could affect the duty cycle of how 

2 often people use it all day long, because there’s a 

3 new feature now, so now I can spend more time, have 

4 more reasons to have my TV on and watch.

5 So, you know, the only -- I mean, the only 

6 solution I would see to this is you would have to 

7 actually take a Set-Top Box, look at all the 

8 functions in it, figure out how to run every 

9 function at its absolute maximum energy use, so that 

10 the box, theoretically, never could exceed that, it 

11 doesn’t matter what you did to it. I mean that 

12 would be -- and I think that would be very difficult 

13 to do from a test prospective, but that’s the only 

14 sort of theoretical solution I could think of.

15 MR. BROOKMAN: Paul, follow on.

16 MR. GLIST: And Gary’s right, no one’s 

17 going to commit to an answer to this. But another 

18 problem set that might help us think about it is -- 

19 this gets back to what are we measuring, and so you 

20 have an example of a Set-Top Box that plays 

21 removable media, so let’s imagine that you’ve got a 

22 Blue Ray player built into a leased Set-Top Box, and 

23 that’s one thing in your sights, right. But let’s 

24 also recognize that Blue Ray players are in commerce 

25 today with connectivity to the network and 
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1 subscription packages from Netflix and other video 

2 providers. Is that in class or out? Is it 

3 different? Does it matter who the source is? Does 

4 it need a cable card to be in the class? Why, if 

5 it’s consuming the same content from the edge of the 

6 net, the distant edge of the net, as opposed to 

7 something closer in or up in space? So how do we 

8 define what those products are that we’re looking 

9 at? And we use a problem set because I like to 

10 think in examples.

11 MR. BROOKMAN: Noah Horowitz.

12 MR. HOROWITZ: Thanks for the examples on 

13 how you might consider going for product classes. I 

14 know this is not meant to be exhaustive, but it did 

15 pop out to me that you didn’t show examples of 

16 network equipment. So we would encourage, in 

17 developing product classes, at a minimum, you have 

18 two clusters of the broadband devices, so a cable or 

19 DSL modem, and then separately, the routers. These 

20 are the conventional products in a residential 

21 setting. And then I think the question Paul is 

22 alluding to, there’s a term in the industry OTT, 

23 over-the-top. So you have your cable, satellite, or 

24 Telco box, and sitting on top of that, physically, 

25 might be Apple TV or a Roku box. Are those in or 
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1 out? I don’t have an opinion, but needs to be 

2 decided upon.

3 MR. DOMMU: Yeah. I think that was more 

4 of a detail question that was in the RFI, do you 

5 consider those OTT boxes as part of IP or Telcom 

6 boxes, in that product class, or do you establish 

7 your own separate product class for those? And we 

8 certainly welcome input on that decision.

9 MR. BROOKMAN: On that specific question, 

10 do we have comment at this point? OTT boxes? 

11 Katharine?

12 MS. KAPLAN: They qualify as IP boxes 

13 under the Energy Star program.

14 MR. BROOKMAN: That’s helpful. Thank you. 

15 Gary.

16 MR. LANGILLE: I think they’re in. I 

17 guarantee they will get more functionality over 

18 time. They’ll sort of be rising to meet -- there’ll 

19 be a convergence where, you know, maybe some things 

20 you can do in a service provider Set-Top Box which 

21 you can’t do with an IP-TV Set-Top Box, but it’ll 

22 change over time.

23 MR. DOMMU: Okay. Those are the questions 

24 on product classes and we certainly welcome your 

25 input.
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1 MR. BROOKMAN: Well, and if you look at 

2 the ones that are up there on the screen, there’s 

3 some more specific. That was a very useful bit of 

4 commentary at the very broad level, and there are 

5 many more specific questions here: baseline energy 

6 consumption, market share, et cetera, et cetera. So 

7 can we get some additional comment on that? Gary.

8 MR. LANGILLE: Well, my general comment 

9 would be is that, at least from our perspective, the 

10 Energy Star method works extremely well. So I mean, 

11 whatever you can do to mimic that, you know, maybe 

12 you have to change how you present it for certain 

13 limitations you have, but the more you can mimic 

14 that, the better. 

15 The only other comment I have is that I do 

16 think that multi-room, that sort of category, has 

17 evolved a bit since we first did the Energy Star

18 program, and I’m sure that’ll come up for discussion 

19 before the next version of Energy Star, but what 

20 we’re finding, for instance, Dish Network and Direct 

21 TV recently have started shipping what I would call, 

22 I don’t know, for lack of any other word, true 

23 multi-room, where you have a main box and then you 

24 have clients. And those clients are totally 

25 dependent on that main box. But what we’re finding 
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1 is that neither one of our products are able to meet 

2 the Energy Star, even though the sort of multi-room 

3 category allowance is applied. So multi-room may 

4 turn out to be a category, not just something 

5 included.

6 MR. BROOKMAN: Katharine, you want in 

7 here?

8 MS. KAPLAN: Well, I just -- thinking 

9 about a couple of the comments that have been made 

10 so far, speaking to desire to ensure kind of enough 

11 room for innovation of course, and also thinking 

12 about simplicity for the consumer, that, you know, 

13 sometimes I think that having 16 or 17 categories 

14 makes things very confusing to the consumer, they 

15 don’t really sort of know what they’re getting. 

16 So I encourage DOE to, you know, as with 

17 this product category you’re thinking about 

18 different ways of interacting with stakeholders, 

19 maybe webinars and other things sort of during your 

20 process, I encourage you to see what you can do to 

21 approach this a little differently, approach this 

22 product class a little differently to ensure, again, 

23 head room for innovation and clarity for the 

24 consumer. And I would suggest fewer classes is more 

25 desirable.
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1 MR. BROOKMAN: Adam.

2 MS. KAPLAN: And more nimbleness as far as 

3 adding allowances for functionality. However you 

4 are allowed to do that, you know.

5 MR. BROOKMAN: And now to Adam.

6 MR. A. GOLDBERG: Adam Goldberg for TiVo. 

7 I just want to follow up on what Gary was saying a 

8 moment ago. I think that it seems to me one of the 

9 more attractive areas for energy conservation in 

10 Set-Top Boxes is to focus a bit more on what the 

11 consumption is per outlet in a multi-room box 

12 situation. You get a lot of, I think, get a lot of 

13 opportunities if you have one box that does most of 

14 the functionality and then lots of the -- call them 

15 thin clients or satellite -- lower case -- satellite 

16 boxes scattered about the house. 

17 One of the frustrations that TiVo has had 

18 in the past with the way the Energy Star program has 

19 been set up to date is that there is only a limited 

20 allowance for additional tuners, so you can’t -- it 

21 makes it very difficult to qualify a box for Energy 

22 Star if it’s got four, six, or eight tuners in it. 

23 But if you look at how much power is consumed by the 

24 total number of boxes in a home, if you have one big 

25 box and lots of little boxes, the total power is 
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1 much less than if you have lots of medium-size 

2 boxes.

3 So I think when we’re looking at defining, 

4 setting up classes, we need to somehow, and I don’t 

5 know how you would do this, somehow construct a 

6 situation where you can reward, you can make 

7 allowance for a situation where one box may consume 

8 a bit more power, but in aggregate for the home, 

9 it’s less power.

10 MR. BROOKMAN: You would need some sort of 

11 system configuration thing.

12 MR. A. GOLDBERG: It’s complicated. I 

13 mean I don’t have a good solution for you 

14 extemporaneously here today, but I think that, you 

15 know, just in terms of keeping things in mind and 

16 setting goals for ourselves, we -- we should keep 

17 this in mind.

18 MR. DOMMU: I think it’s certainly a point 

19 well taken, and we welcome comments or any potential 

20 solutions or recommendations in the comment period 

21 for how we could address some of those issues that 

22 you guys brought up.

23 MR. BROOKMAN: Gary.

24 MR. LANGILLE: Just to follow up. I think 

25 Noah said this a few minutes ago, about the network 
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1 equipment. I met -- I do think clarification is 

2 necessary in terms of what’s meant by network 

3 equipment as far as this particular RFI. I did 

4 notice that there was an RFI, I believe, issued 

5 yesterday for miscellaneous products in the home, 

6 and that also has -- includes network equipment.

7 My reading of the technical analysis, as 

8 well as the RFI, and sort of looking at the kinds of 

9 questions you’re asking, my interpretation is that 

10 what you may have meant by Set-Top Boxes and Network 

11 Equipment, was really Set-Top Boxes and video12 related Network Equipment. And not just the general 

13 wireless router that many people have in their home 

14 for wireless access. But I -- I think it should be 

15 clarified by DOE at some point as to which RFI those 

16 kind of products should apply to.

17 And someone was mentioning, you know, 

18 there’s a whole bunch of companies that aren’t here 

19 that would want to be here if you actually meant 

20 wireless routers and things like that.

21 MR. DOMMU: Yeah, I mean, in the summer we 

22 issued a coverage determination that gave a 

23 definition of what Set-Top Boxes and Network 

24 Equipment is. I don’t have that in front of me, but 

25 I think it’s even within the RFI. But there are 
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1 many questions and comments that came back from that 

2 proposed determination that had comments and 

3 concerns about what our definition is. So we’ve 

4 been considering them, and at future times in the 

5 rulemaking process, if we so decide, that we could 

6 alter or change that definition, but for now we just 

7 ask you to focus on the questions that are in the 

8 RFI.

9 MR. BROOKMAN: So that was Jeremy. And 

10 let me direct your attention back to these issue 

11 boxes to see if we have any additional comment here. 

12 Andrew DeLaski.

13 MR. DeLASKI: Two observations, not 

14 particular view, but -- and I’m struck that, you 

15 know, this is, I think we all recognize this is a 

16 very different kind of product for DOE to set 

17 standards for, compared to anything you’ve ever 

18 regulated before. I mean we all know pretty much a 

19 refrigerator, they sell them to the consumer, they 

20 no longer have a relationship with that 

21 refrigerator. They have warranty obligations, but 

22 they don’t have an ongoing relationship, they don’t 

23 have ongoing control.

24 In this case, a product is being made by a 

25 manufacturer, sold to a service provider, and 
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1 typically, ownership is then retained by that 

2 service provider, who then has an ongoing electronic 

3 communication with that device, and able to change 

4 it both remotely and on site. 

5 So I think back to the question of the 

6 energy consumption changing over time, I think a 

7 question that needs to be wrestled with is, is it --

8 do you try to set the standard based on as the 

9 product is initially deployed, or do you set the 

10 standard based on what the product is capable of? 

11 It goes to the question you’re raising, which is do 

12 you have to say what is this thing capable of and 

13 make sure you capture everything, or capture it as 

14 initially deployed, knowing full well that you just 

15 can’t know what’s going to happen over the five year 

16 life of the product. I don’t know the answer to 

17 that. I think it’s a very important question, and 

18 that energy consumption could double over the life 

19 of the product is something we care about a lot, and 

20 have -- another matter is having control over how 

21 energy consumption can happen over time, I think is 

22 something is a lot of interest around the table.

23 I think a second question that’s come up 

24 is, you know, how many product classes make sense. 

25 There are different motivations or different 
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1 benefits that push in different directions. 

2 Katharine mentioned the need for simplicity, 

3 simplicity makes it easier for consumers to 

4 understand. I think that’s an important value. I 

5 would note that for something like home 

6 refrigerators, there’s something like 30 product 

7 classes for DOE standards. I don’t think any 

8 consumer knows. 

9 So I think DOE’s product classes are not 

10 something that necessarily is visible to any 

11 consumer anywhere. The risk in limiting product 

12 classes is that you end up having to set product

13 classes based on the highest energy consuming 

14 product that fits in that product class, and things 

15 that can use less energy, basically get an easier 

16 ride. So that you have a fairness question, I 

17 think, that comes into play, and also a question of, 

18 you know, are we capturing the energy savings that’s 

19 achievable, technologically feasible and 

20 economically justified if we lump things into too 

21 small a number of product classes. In that sense, 

22 the energy hog drives the level, as opposed to the 

23 energy -- the thing that’s doing the most, you know, 

24 and the thing that’s doing the least gets a much 

25 easier ride. So I think we need to balance those 
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1 factors. I think they’re all important and need to 

2 be balanced.

3 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you. Katharine.

4 MS. KAPLAN: You know, Andrew, your points 

5 about sort of letting the most consumptive product 

6 drive the limit, resonates with me for sure. But on 

7 the consumer, the clarity for the consumer, I agree 

8 that a lot of things can be behind the scenes, but, 

9 you know, I also believe that when a consumer looks 

10 at an Energy Guide label and is trying to make a 

11 comparison between one product and another, that it 

12 is confusing. The limits are different for 

13 different classes, and it’s very hard to make a fair 

14 comparison whether something’s a leadership product 

15 or not because of all the various classes.

16 MR. DeLASKI: And that’s well taken. I 

17 think it goes to, I think we think about how -- what 

18 the classes are serving for the purpose of this 

19 particular docket, and in this case, this is a 

20 product not bought by a consumer but by these guys, 

21 and the Energy Guide label is not even in play here. 

22 So I think that’s --

23 MR. BROOKMAN: Adam Goldberg.

24 MR. A. GOLDBERG: Yeah, I just want to 

25 point out for TiVo that TiVo devices are both sold 
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1 to retail and bought by some service providers and 

2 deployed, so it’s not always the case.

3 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you. Okay. I’ll 

4 give you one more chance to look at these boxes to 

5 see if there’s anything additional to be said before 

6 we move on. Yes, Tom Eckman.

7 MR. ECKMAN: Tom Eckman, Northwest Power 

8 and Conservation Council. I think it would be 

9 useful to DOE to get some feedback on the market 

10 share going forward for some of these products, 

11 rather than the current market share, because that’s 

12 probably not very helpful given the lead time for 

13 the standards application. That some of the product 

14 class may basically disappear as we see them today 

15 in terms of combinations going forward --

16 MR. BROOKMAN: You’re asking them to 

17 forecast --

18 MR. ECKMAN: Well, they have business 

19 plans, I suspect, going forward, some idea what the 

20 product offering might be. They may not want to 

21 disclose those, but it would be useful to not spend 

22 an awful lot of time regulating something that won’t 

23 exist.

24 MR. BROOKMAN: There are a lot of folks in 

25 the room that haven’t participated in these 
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1 proceedings previously, and they may not know about 

2 the confidentiality provisions. Was that in the 

3 RFI?

4 MR. DOMMU: Yeah, I think that is a very 

5 good question. Celia, do you want to comment on the 

6 confidentiality of obtaining information from 

7 stakeholders?

8 MR. BROOKMAN: It’s a big topic.

9 MS. SHER: Okay. I think that during the 

10 market impact analysis, our consultants will be 

11 doing interviews with corporations, entities, and I 

12 think at that time they will sign -- they will do 

13 non-disclosure agreements. So the conversations 

14 that you have with the consultants on this technical 

15 information is kept confidential. To the extent 

16 that you submit your comments to the Department and 

17 you want to keep things confidential, you should 

18 mark that, and then to the best of our ability, we 

19 will keep that information confidential, to the 

20 extent permitted by law.

21 MR. N. GOLDBERG: One question. Neal 

22 Goldberg, NCTA. Will the consultants be reaching 

23 out to individual companies, whether or not they 

24 participated previously, so someone might just get a 

25 communication out of the blue?
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1 MS. SHER: I’m not sure exactly how that 

2 process works. If Jeremy or John might be able --

3 MR. BROOKMAN: John Cymbalsky.

4 MR. CYMBALSKY: Sure. The consultants 

5 will contact you directly. They know who the major 

6 players are and they do their research and they will 

7 go down the list with phone calls, and follow -- and 

8 traditionally, they’ll go to the manufacturing 

9 facility with a series of questions and that’s how 

10 they gather their data.

11 MR. BROOKMAN: John.

12 MR. HERRICK: This is John Herrick from 

13 Brownstein. On that point, your materials say you 

14 will go to the manufacturers and this situation will 

15 also be the service providers and manufacturers and 

16 other interested stakeholders, rather than just 

17 manufacturers?

18 MR. CYMBALSKY: Right. I use the word 

19 manufacturer, but of course this is a unique 

20 product, as Andrew had pointed out, and it’s not 

21 just the manufacturers, but the service providers.

22 MR. BROOKMAN: Adam.

23 MR. A. GOLDBERG: In response to -- sorry, 

24 this is Adam for TiVo -- in response to the 

25 discussion about forecasts and business plans, I 
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1 think that maybe this industry is a little bit 

2 different from others, but six years hence is, I 

3 think, off the end of the earth. And one might have 

4 just the barest conception of what might happen that 

5 far away, and, you know, that’s number one. And 

6 number two, even if one does make some plans or some 

7 forecasts, I mean, I think if we could accurately 

8 predict what’s going to happen six years from now, 

9 let me know, because we could make a lot of money.

10 MR. BROOKMAN: Noah Horowitz.

11 MR. HOROWITZ: I want to echo Tom’s 

12 suggestion. I think it’s impossible to forecast the 

13 future perfectly, or all of us would be doing a 

14 different job. But I think it is fair to say the 

15 business model of two years ago is what a lot of the 

16 data is based on, and we know what today is let’s at 

17 a minimum make sure things reflect the present, and 

18 to the extent we could look into the future, albeit 

19 with some uncertainty, let’s do so. I think we all 

20 are pretty confident that the DTA, the digital TV 

21 adapter that goes on a CRT TV, in six years is going 

22 to become close to extinct. How much resources

23 should be put on that, that will inform it.

24 Similarly, satellite companies used to 

25 provide a DVR in every room. That’s probably not 
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1 going to be the case for this slim client world, so 

2 if we looked at today, we won’t adequately reflect 

3 what it’s really going to look like in the future.

4 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. So that kind of 

5 illustration, those kinds of call-outs, I think, are 

6 very helpful to the Department in writing.

7 MR. CYMBALSKY: This is John Cymbalsky, 

8 DOE. Just to let you know, we’ve had -- internally, 

9 we’ve had meetings with the team and me and sat in a 

10 room and brainstormed all this stuff. You know, 

11 we’re just not ready to commit to anything, but 

12 we’re really asking the key stakeholders here to 

13 help us out on this. We know it’s a sticky issue. 

14 To the best of our ability, we’ve discussed it 

15 internally already, but we know that you guys are 

16 the experts, not necessarily us, so we’re really 

17 looking for the input here. Thank you.

18 MR. BROOKMAN: Are we ready to move on 

19 now? Let’s.

20 Screening Analysis

21 MR. DOMMU: Okay. We’re next going to 

22 talk about the screening analysis and I’m going to 

23 welcome back Allen Tsao from Navigant Consulting. 

24 He’s going to walk us through the screening 

25 analysis, and then the engineering analysis, and all 
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1 the detail that goes into those.

2 MR. BROOKMAN: Our target time for lunch 

3 is approximately 12:30, another 20 minutes or so.

4 MR. DOMMU: Go ahead, Allen.

5 Screening Analysis

6 MR. TSAO: So once we get through the 

7 sticky issue which is product classes, we go through 

8 the screening analysis of technologies. So the idea 

9 of this is that the market and tech assessment 

10 report included many various possible options for 

11 improving the efficiencies. Some we’ve heard, like 

12 the multi-room set-ups, or things like that.

13 At this point, DOE then needs to screen 

14 out certain technology options based on four 

15 factors, and they may include

16 • the feasibility of such a technology option, 

17 • or the practibility to manufacture, install or 

18 service such a technology option, 

19 • or any adverse impacts on utility or consumer 

20 utility, so basically any loss of 

21 functionality or features that are considered 

22 vital to the consumers,

23 • or any impacts on health and safety 

24 would not be included for any future like standard 
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1 or any of the analysis downstream.

2 I want to talk about a few of the 

3 technology options that were outlined in the 

4 preliminary market and tech assessment report. The 

5 first being, you know, we’ve discussed sort of deep 

6 sleep or light sleep, but in general there are 

7 power management features where you could possibly 

8 place the processor or the video in a lower power 

9 state or a lower functionality state when not in 

10 use, but perhaps the active network connection is 

11 still maintained and the memory or the RAM is still 

12 powered in order to maintain state, and that would 

13 be to minimize, you know, any wake up time or 

14 resume time that would be a negative impact to 

15 consumers.

16 We also identified the multi-room set ups, 

17 which I think a lot has been discussed so far 

18 around using thin clients as opposed to full19 function Set-Top Boxes. And in general, other 

20 technology options like using more efficient 

21 components, like more efficient power supplies or 

22 lower power or lower voltage electronic components, 

23 would help, as well as perhaps reducing disk energy 

24 by using -- we discussed a little bit, solid state 

25 drives or other lower energy hard drives for DVR 
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1 Set-Top Boxes.

2 So we’d like to open up for comment on 

3 sort of how the screening criteria outlined may 

4 apply to those technology options that were 

5 described, and whether or not there are other 

6 technology options that should be considered when 

7 looking at sort of what efficiency improvements 

8 could be applied.

9 MR. BROOKMAN: Noah.

10 MR. HOROWITZ: Noah Horowitz, NCTA. Have 

11 you considered the cable card requirement? It’s 

12 imposed by the Federal Communications Commission on 

13 cable operators, unless they get a waiver, so every 

14 cable operator’s leased box has to have a cable 

15 card in it, even though it doesn’t really provide 

16 any functions or features beyond what the pre-cable 

17 card boxes did, the integrated boxes? There’s not 

18 much anybody can do about it until the FCC changes 

19 that rule, but is that something you would want 

20 comment on?

21 MR. BROOKMAN: Jeremy?

22 MR. DOMMU: I think at this time we would 

23 invite you to take that issue up with the 

24 Commission. There’s not much that we could 

25 specifically do or address regarding cable card 
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1 requirement.

2 MR. HOROWITZ: I understood that. I was 

3 just wondering if someone might end up opining on 

4 whether or not the fact that you’re required --

5 that a cable card is required even though it 

6 doesn’t add any function, but does take up --

7 consume some energy, might be relevant to this 

8 discussion. We can raise that in our comment.

9 MR. DOMMU: That would be helpful.

10 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you. You see the 

11 question there. Comments on how the above four 

12 screening criteria might apply to technology 

13 options discussed in the preliminary market and 

14 technology assessment, and others? Gary.

15 MR. LANGILLE: Just sort of a topical comment 

16 on solid state disk drives. I mean obviously the 

17 favorable attributes are clear. However, based on 

18 our most recent knowledge, disk drive manufacturers 

19 who manufacture these devices really aren’t 

20 recommending them for a DVR activity. Apparently 

21 the duty cycle isn’t quite what it needs to be, and 

22 the failure rates would be far too high. So I’m 

23 not saying that it won’t happen. It probably will. 

24 Everything happens. But at least today it’s, you 

25 know, besides the cost factor, I know there’s other 
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1 factors that generally tend to trend down at some 

2 point, but there are some basic technical issues 

3 still.

4 MR. BROOKMAN: Paul.

5 MR. GLIST: I think in the earlier 

6 overview discussion, Jeremy may have said, or it 

7 could have been you, that you typically look at 

8 using standard components in applying the screening 

9 analysis. Did I get that right, or what does it 

10 mean in this field? Do we posit the invention of 

11 new technology in screening, or do we take 

12 technology as it stands now? Do we project 

13 forward? What do we do in screening?

14 MR. TSAO: None of that is actually 

15 screened out, necessarily, at the screening point. 

16 The criteria is sort of outlined for the screening. 

17 But that may be factored in in towards the 

18 engineering analysis, which we’ll get to -- which 

19 is the next step in the process, which is where we 

20 look at sort of the cost and efficiency curves, and 

21 things like whether or not we forecast, or whether 

22 or not we use existing technologies, I think we’ll 

23 answer in a few slides. So hopefully we’ll get to 

24 that.

25 MR. BROOKMAN: Please say your name.
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1 MS. SANFORD: Hi. I’m Jennifer Sanford 

2 with Cisco. I just wanted to echo Gary’s comment 

3 about solid state drives, that we’re hearing from 

4 our engineers that as of today those are not a 

5 feasible, reliable alternative to hard disk drives, 

6 so wanted to make sure that that was mentioned on 

7 the record from a technological standpoint.

8 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Follow on Gary, and 

9 then Noah.

10 MR. LANGILLE: Okay. I also wanted to 

11 mention that the natural tendency, because of how 

12 these programs have tended to work is to always 

13 focus on this, you know, turn the thing off when 

14 it’s not being used. And that’s certainly viable. 

15 However, I think you have to look at each 

16 individually. For instance, in a multi-room set-up 

17 where this central box now does video, but the 

18 trends we’re seeing is that it’s also going to be 

19 your phone. It’s also going to be your internet 

20 distribution center. It’s also going to manage a 

21 security system. It’s also going to be connected 

22 to your doctor’s office. It’s also going to be 

23 connected to ordering, you know, specialty 

24 services.

25 So when you look at that particular box, 
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1 as admirable as the goal is to put it to sleep, 

2 when you look at the duty cycle, it’s going to have 

3 to be on 23.99999 hours a day out of 24. Really 

4 the goal should be how to lower the on power, not 

5 worry about putting it to sleep.

6 Now when you look at another device, like 

7 a client, or something that’s in a spare bedroom 

8 where a TV gets used, you know, two weeks a year 

9 when your mother-in-law visits, obviously, putting 

10 it to sleep is the right answer.

11 PARTICIPANT: Two weeks?

12 MR. LANGILLE: Not consecutively. And I 

13 didn’t say put my mother-in-law to sleep.

14 MR. BROOKMAN: I’m glad you clarified that 

15 for the record. Noah.

16 MR. HOROWITZ: I’m going to go in a 

17 different direction. These are more suggestions 

18 for the DOE and its consultant team to take a look 

19 at is, the electronic program guide, how that’s 

20 currently deployed, and if it were deployed 

21 differently how could that positively lower standby 

22 power? Because often that’s -- that may be the 

23 reason why they’re using such how standby power 

24 levels because when the consumer hits the on/off 

25 button it takes a long time for it to reboot, and 
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1 if the EPG were delivered in a different way that 

2 might go away. I didn’t see that in the list.

3 Also in terms of the discussion of solid 

4 state drives, I think there is consensus that they 

5 could potentially save power. They’re a new 

6 technology. Many of the new small thin cool7 looking laptops that are being introduced all have 

8 some form of solid state drives. They’re being 

9 introduced. If they weren’t reliable, I don’t know 

10 if they’d be placed in there. So if there are 

11 similar devices, let’s see what we can learn from 

12 that deployment.

13 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Thanks. Yes, Adam.

14 MR. A. GOLDBERG: Adam for TiVo. I want 

15 to caution a little bit. I’ve heard Noah say a lot 

16 today and lots over the past few years, that one of 

17 the, or maybe the reason why boxes can’t be powered 

18 to off now or why long boot-up time would happen 

19 relates to the program guide, and I’d suggest that 

20 there are other reasons that are far more important 

21 as to why the box needs to -- boxes typically now 

22 need to be on line all the time, and that relates 

23 to service authorization. Even if the boxes had no 

24 program guide at all, they’d still need to be 

25 listening to the network.
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1 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you. I think we’re 

2 ready.

3 MR. TSAO: This is a follow on to the 

4 previous questions, but in general, you know, we’re 

5 looking for basically any feedback or comments on 

6 technological or economic or competitive impacts 

7 using the various sleep modes that have sort of 

8 been discussed on what can be powered down and what 

9 cannot be powered down and why. And we’re also 

10 looking, just in general, what technologies that 

11 could improve energy efficiency, or what are 

12 possible options out there, while still maintaining 

13 the consumer functionality of resuming very quickly 

14 without having a negative experience. 

15 And I think the need to follow on on your 

16 point, or TiVo’s point, if there are other design 

17 limitations based on sort of the network or cable, 

18 satellite, or terrestrial infrastructure that’s 

19 sort of dictating, you know, what is 

20 technologically feasible or not feasible, is also 

21 important to get any feedback on that would be very 

22 helpful.

23 MR. BROOKMAN: It’s close to lunch.

24 MR. TSAO: Okay. 

25 MR. BROOKMAN: So I want you to repeat the 
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1 question one more time.

2 MR. TSAO: Okay. So, on issue 20 we’re 

3 talking about any infrastructure limitations by the 

4 cable or satellite or the infrastructure that 

5 could, you know, prevent sleep modes or any other 

6 efficiency improvements being made. And in general 

7 just additional comment or market data or any other 

8 information related to that.

9 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you. Gary.

10 MR. LANGILLE: I’d ad lib. Gary from 

11 EchoStar. Today’s satellite systems mandate 

12 continuous connection to the satellite. Done. 

13 There may be opportunities to disconnect from the 

14 satellite for short periods of time, but you have 

15 to realize that a satellite system is a one-way 

16 broadcast system, so for a satellite provider to 

17 communicate with Noah’s Set-Top Box in his home, 

18 that small communication has to go out and be 

19 broadcast to everybody, and then each box has to 

20 sort of be sitting there, looking for it. Now if 

21 it happens to go to sleep for 29 minutes and comes 

22 up for five minutes, that’s great, but the problem 

23 is the communication came flying by during the 29 

24 minutes you were asleep.

25 So there are certain inherent limitations 
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1 when you’re dealing with the broadcast system. You 

2 know, I’m not saying that there won’t be research 

3 done to see if that can’t be handled in different 

4 ways. We’re always looking at that, and we will 

5 continue to look at that. But it’s not -- in a 

6 two-way system, it’s a little different. I mean, 

7 you could have a Set-Top Box go to sleep and when 

8 it finally wakes up it sends a communication back 

9 to the system that says, I was asleep for six 

10 hours, tell me what I missed, kind of thing. 

11 Now you may not be happy with the wake up 

12 time and all that, but I’m just saying that there 

13 is some inherent limitations in how these networks 

14 are designed at a high level that has to be 

15 recognized.

16 MR. BROOKMAN: Let’s hear from Paul first.

17 MR. GLIST: This is Paul. Gary’s raising 

18 a critical point and we’ll also put in written 

19 comments to discuss this. I would say that Gary’s 

20 solution for cable isn’t quite right, but the cable 

21 industry, as you know, has publicly committed to go 

22 into a voluntary initiative where light sleep is 

23 being rolled out for deployment this year, and we 

24 have a lot of resources in place to get to deep 

25 sleep modes to address some of the most critical 
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1 issues that the Department is trying to address.

2 Part of the art there is to be able to 

3 vary the power in ways that do not lose heartbeat 

4 to the network, and do not harm the customer 

5 experience. US customers want their TVs on when 

6 they turn them on. That doesn’t mean we can’t do 

7 it in a smarter way, and the cable operators have 

8 committed to do that, and are working very 

9 aggressively to do that. 

10 We’ll fill you in in writing, but the 

11 fundamental issue here is that, unlike whatever you 

12 want to do with other pieces of CPE that don’t 

13 require constant connectivity, this is a different 

14 animal you’re dealing with, and we can’t lose the 

15 heartbeat.

16 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. 

17 MS. KAPLAN: In follow up, Gary to your 

18 comment. I wonder if there are any lessons that 

19 can be learned from the computer industry where, 

20 for example, the proxying standard has allowed for 

21 maintenance of network connectivity at a very low 

22 sleep mode, and so now Energy Star computers are 

23 picking up the proxying standard. We’ve also 

24 proposed picking up a proxying standard in small 

25 network equipment, so can something similar happen 
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1 here so that you maintain the connection but you 

2 just do it in a low power mode.

3 MR. GLIST: Yeah, that’s definitely, 

4 depending on technology availability, you 

5 certainly don’t need to have 100 percent of the 

6 Set-Top Box powered in order to maintain 

7 communication. The dilemma is you need --

8 unfortunately today you need quite a bit of the 

9 Set-Top Box powered to maintain communication. So, 

10 you know, it’s not like you have one little 

11 internet connection so you can drop down to two 

12 watts and still be monitoring. So it’s just a 

13 limitation of how the system works right now that’s 

14 a barrier.

15 MR. BROOKMAN: Tom Eckman.

16 MR. ECKMAN: Tom Eckman. When this 

17 question -- because I’m unfamiliar with the 

18 technology, but that may mean a different product 

19 class if there’s internet connectivity to the 

20 satellite or phone connectivity to the satellite 

21 box relative to -- because that provides two-way 

22 communication, that that might be a differential in 

23 product class because we have to maintain 

24 relatively high power to stay connected with the 

25 bird upstairs, versus if you’ve got internet 
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1 connectivity, you can wake it up on land and send a 

2 different signal to the same IP address. I don’t 

3 know if that’s possible, but --

4 MR. GLIST: All things are possible, but I 

5 do want to highlight the fact that it could take 

6 $100 million dollars to develop a system to now 

7 manage both the satellite and an IP system.

8 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. I’d like you to take 

9 one more look at these issue boxes because we’re 

10 about to break for lunch. Let’s see if we have any 

11 additional comments on these before we head out of 

12 here. Nothing additional at this time? Okay. 

13 So I want to thank all of you. This has 

14 been a very, very constructive conversation this 

15 morning. We are now going to break for lunch. 

16 It’s just about 12:30 by this watch. We’re going 

17 to pause for an hour. Please don’t leave the DOE 

18 campus, you won’t make it back in time. We’re 

19 going to resume at 1:30. Wear your badge inside 

20 the building. There’s a big cafeteria down to the 

21 ground floor and walk about 100 yards that way and 

22 there’s a lot of food offerings there, and I think 

23 most any dietary preference can be served. 

24 (Whereupon, at 12:28 p.m., the meeting in 

25 the above captioned matter was adjourned for lunch 
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1 recess, to reconvene at 1:30 p.m.)

2
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2 1:37 p.m.

1 AFTERNOON SESSION

3 MR. BROOKMAN: We’re going to resume. 

4 We’ve had one or two individuals that joined us that 

5 weren’t with us here this morning when everybody was 

6 doing introductions. We’ll give those individuals a 

7 chance to introduce themselves. Please say your 

8 name and organizational affiliation. You need to 

9 turn it on. Yes, thank you.

10 MR. BELL: Bill Bell from the Consumer 

11 Electronics Association.

12 MR. BROOKMAN: Anybody else that didn’t 

13 get a chance to introduce him or herself? Okay. I 

14 guess we’ve covered everybody. Jeremy, who is 

15 continuing to be on top of things passed me a note 

16 and on the slide presentation on the screen, we 

17 didn’t push up issue 19, which is on Page 48 on your 

18 PowerPoint slides in your packet, and I want to make 

19 sure that we get comment on 19, should there be any, 

20 before we move forward with the program.

21 It says DOE is interested in other 

22 examples and data of energy-reducing technologies, 

23 configurations, or product designs, other than sleep 

24 modes, that could help improve the efficiency of 

25 Set-Top Boxes. So I guess we’ve covered some of 
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1 that. We hit a glancing blow on some of that 

2 content.

3 MR. DOMMU: Yeah. We tried to make the 

4 issue boxes in numerical order, but some of them got 

5 out of order when we were finalizing the 

6 presentation, but you will see all of the issues in 

7 the supplement to your packet in order, those 

8 include both the ones that will appear as issue 

9 boxes in the presentation and other ones that we 

10 didn’t bring up that were in the Request for 

11 Information.

12 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you, Jeremy. So 

13 we’re back to Allen and we’re going to continue with 

14 the content presentation and discussion.

15 Engineering Analysis

16 MR. TSAO: Okay. Thank you. So the next 

17 step on the analysis is, after we’ve screened out 

18 various technology options is to perform the actual 

19 engineering analysis. The engineering analysis is 

20 sort of the key piece for all the downstream 

21 analysis, and this is where we sort of generate the 

22 relationship between the efficiency and the cost 

23 associated with Set-Top Boxes. And that data is 

24 then used for all the life cycle cost and payback 

25 period, as well as impacts to manufacturers and 
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1 employment impacts, and just in general all the 

2 downstream analysis.

3 So I’ll go through each of the steps that 

4 are taken through the engineering analysis in 

5 detail. This is just to give you a general overview 

6 of the various -- of the rough order in which the 

7 engineering analysis is done. 

8 So the first thing DOE will attempt to 

9 analyze is pare down the list of product classes 

10 into representative product classes to be analyzed. 

11 And this is, going back to our discussion, the 

12 product class feature sets could be very numerous, 

13 depending on what features we allow adding into 

14 separate product classes. If there were 100-ish 

15 product classes, DOE could not analyze all of them 

16 in great detail. So DOE will choose various 

17 representative product classes and the 

18 representation may be based sort of what are the 

19 expected high volume products, and availability of 

20 those products to be analyzed, and the ability to 

21 sort of scale to the other product classes that 

22 weren’t chosen for representation.

23 So I would say, in general, for all the 

24 features that we would say would distinguish a 

25 product class, there would tend to be representative 
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1 of at least one product class, so DVR would, for 

2 example, maybe analyze for cable -- there may be a 

3 cable DVR product class and that may scale to 

4 satellite DVR product class, or depending on what 

5 makes the most sense.

6 From the representative product classes, a 

7 baseline model is chosen, or the characteristics of 

8 a baseline model, I should say. And this is really 

9 the reference point by which a standard is sort of 

10 judged and analyzed. It usually represents a 

11 commercially available product, including 

12 commercially available capabilities and energy 

13 efficiency and cost. The baseline model is used 

14 when we’re looking at life cycle cost and payback in 

15 terms of like, a higher standard requiring a payback 

16 relative to the baseline model. And so in general, 

17 all the energy savings and changes in price, all of 

18 that is done relative to the baseline model.

19 Once that’s complete, we will then 

20 identify specific Set-Top Box models to perform the 

21 more detailed analysis. So these may be higher than 

22 baseline efficiency models, so they’re not 

23 necessarily just the baseline models, but they would 

24 -- we would look like at Energy Star qualified boxes 

25 in terms of maybe what would constitute say, higher 
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1 efficiency product, and that sort of spread would 

2 help generate what we’re ultimately trying to get to 

3 is a cost efficiency curve. We’ll evaluate various 

4 design options that are commercially available or 

5 are present in a working prototype, which could 

6 include proprietary designs or technologies. And I 

7 do want to emphasize again that in general we will 

8 attempt to like, for the Set-Top Boxes, have a wide 

9 range of features and definitions in order to make 

10 it a very representative set of products, set of 

11 models to analyze.

12 A little more about proprietary designs --

13 and they would only -- proprietary designs 

14 specifically, would only be considered if it’s not a 

15 unique path to an energy efficiency level. So in 

16 some cases, perhaps a very efficient level, there’s 

17 only a single proprietary design, it may not be 

18 feasible to impose that kind of design across the 

19 entire market. 

20 So in general, we’d open up the floor to -

21 - on are there any issues or are there any 

22 proprietary designs that DOE should consider or 

23 should not consider in this rulemaking, and if so, 

24 how would we acquire the cost and efficiency data 

25 needed to perform our analysis?
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1 MR. BROOKMAN: So proprietary 

2 technologies. Gary.

3 MR. LANGILLE: I’m not sure I totally 

4 understand what you’re looking for here, but one 

5 group of companies that aren’t at the table here,

6 have a pretty big impact on Set-Top Boxes in 

7 general, and that’s like the BroadCom, Intel, ST, 

8 Micro Electronics. You know, it sort of works with 

9 the service providers tell the Set-Top Box 

10 manufacturers the kind of design goals or features 

11 they’d like to see and then the Set-Top Box 

12 manufacturers turn around and tell the chip 

13 suppliers, you know, this is what we’d like to see. 

14 And they have a fairly large impact on energy use of 

15 a Set-Top Box. I’m not sure if their designs would 

16 be considered proprietary or not, but it’s something 

17 for DOE to be aware of.

18 MR. TSAO: Right.

19 MR. BROOKMAN: John.

20 MR. HERRICK: Yes, on the proprietary. 

21 I’m assuming any information supplied would be under 

22 the Trade Secrets Act, protected by federal 

23 employees. But how would that be applicable to your 

24 contractor employees, regarding proprietary 

25 information?
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1 MR. BROOKMAN: Celia.

2 MS. SHER: This is Celia Sher with DOE. 

3 Like I mentioned before, I think the way this 

4 process will work is when our consultants conduct 

5 the interviews, you will sign non-disclosure 

6 agreements with them that will lay out those 

7 details. I’m not -- so I think sensitive 

8 information will be protected that way.

9 MR. HERRICK: So that would be just 

10 information between the submitter and the 

11 consultant?

12 MS. SHER: Do you want to -- Allen do you 

13 know how that process works when you do interviews?

14 MR. TSAO: Yeah, so when we conduct 

15 interviews at the various manufacturers or service 

16 providers, yes, those NDAs would be specific between 

17 -- if we were conducting them, us, and the service 

18 provider, and it would not be disclosed to DOE or 

19 anyone -- I mean, there would be provisions in terms 

20 of what would be allowed to be disclosed.

21 MS. SHER: This is Celia Sher again. I 

22 think that data is then aggregated so there aren’t 

23 any specific parties’ names when we do put out the 

24 data, when we publish that data.

25 MR. TSAO: Right.
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1 MR. BROOKMAN: Adam.

2 MR. A. GOLDBERG: Can somebody give an 

3 example of what -- what this might be, proprietary 

4 designs, proprietary technology. What are we 

5 talking about?

6 MR. TSAO: My view is any proprietary 

7 designs would be, let’s say you have developed an IP 

8 for some sort of power savings feature that no one 

9 else can implement because you have patented it or 

10 it’s considered your own design and no one else is 

11 allowed to mimic or copy that. That would not 

12 necessarily be considered unless there were other 

13 ways to reach the similar energy savings level. So 

14 if you have some advanced technology, for example, 

15 that is unique to TiVo, that may or many not be 

16 licensed out or secure agreements that no one else 

17 is allowed to copy basically, then that would be 

18 considered proprietary design.

19 MR. BROOKMAN: John, go ahead.

20 MR. HERRICK: This is John Herrick. So 

21 that would be both, I imagine, intellectual property 

22 of the submitter that’s either a patent or -- I 

23 imagine it would be a trade secret we’re talking 

24 about.

25 MR. TSAO: Yeah, that could be an example, 
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1 yeah.

2 MR. HERRICK: And again, a follow up. 

3 Those NDAs would have to be very, very tight.

4 MR. TSAO: Yes.

5 MR. BROOKMAN: Please say your name for 

6 the record.

7 MR. RIVEST: Sorry, this is Mike Rivest 

8 from Navigant Consulting. We’ve been conducting 

9 these types of interviews since 1994, and draw a 

10 distinction between sort of proprietary information 

11 and technology that can be considered in a 

12 rulemaking. So you may have proprietary information 

13 you wish to share, but not in your name, or you want 

14 to share it, for example, cost information of 

15 achieving 50 percent savings in energy, and you want 

16 that considered in the rulemaking, but you don’t 

17 want it attributed. So that’s something that would 

18 fall under our NDA. The NDA is between Navigant 

19 Consulting and your firm, and it can’t be FOIA’d by 

20 external parties. And typically the length of --

21 the duration of that is negotiated between our 

22 lawyers and yours, so it’s a number of years after 

23 the end of the rulemaking, for example.

24 In terms of designs that are proprietary, 

25 those can be in the public domain, it’s known that 
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1 you own that patent, so it’s not a trade secret, but 

2 it’s not something that can be implemented by 

3 others, so if it turns out that that’s the only way 

4 to achieve the 50 percent energy savings, then the 

5 Department would -- it would create a problem if the 

6 Department were to set a standard that only you can 

7 achieve. So it has to be proprietary, and it has to 

8 be unique in its ability to meet the standard for it 

9 to be, quote, “screened out.”

10 MR. BROOKMAN: Yes, Noah.

11 MR. HOROWITZ: This is not on the legal 

12 stuff, can I move on?

13 MR. BROOKMAN: Well, let’s see if there 

14 are any other legal questions before we move on. 

15 Yes, Gary.

16 MR. LANGILLE: Maybe I could try to repeat 

17 back and see if you can -- so in other words, if DOE 

18 becomes aware of some technique, technology, method 

19 to save energy, but it’s unique to a single party or 

20 multiple parties, then they would refrain from 

21 recommending that since it couldn’t be used by 

22 others. Is that sort of the idea?

23 MR. BROOKMAN: That’s essentially it. 

24 That’s how I interpreted Mike Rivest’s statement.

25 MR. LANGILLE: Okay. 
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1 MR. BROOKMAN: If you have a proprietary 

2 interest in it, you have a patent for something and 

3 others can’t use it, then DOE can’t say that’s a 

4 technology that others can use to meet the standard. 

5 Adam.

6 MR. A. GOLDBERG: Sorry, Adam from TiVo. 

7 That’s interesting, but that’s not -- that doesn’t 

8 seem responsive to the question in the yellow box.

9 MR. BROOKMAN: Well, no, it isn’t.

10 MR. A. GOLDBERG: Well, I mean and what 

11 Gary said, I think I understand that, but it’s still 

12 not the same thing as what’s in issue 21.

13 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Well, let’s try and 

14 focus in on that. I’ll go to John first.

15 MR. LANGILLE: But it involves more than 

16 something that’s patented. It would involve trade 

17 secrets of a company, and that’s slightly -- not 

18 slightly, that’s a completely different matter, and 

19 again there’s the Trade Secrets Acts that deals with 

20 DOE, but that doesn’t deal with the consultants.

21 MR. BROOKMAN: And how are trade secrets 

22 different in this context. 

23 MR. LANGILLE: Well, a patent you’re 

24 protected, other people can’t use it. A trade 

25 secret, if you let it go, it’s gone.
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1 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. 

2 MS. SHER: And I would just suggest to --

3 we’re taking these comments in now, but to submit 

4 comments like that so that we can consider that in 

5 the next phase of rulemaking.

6 MR. BROOKMAN: Adam. Are you --

7 MR. A. GOLDBERG: I still don’t know -- I 

8 still don’t know what we’re talking about in issue 

9 21. So we talked about some proprietary 

10 technologies that DOE shouldn’t consider, what are 

11 some proprietary technologies that DOE should 

12 consider? How does that -- I mean I think what we 

13 talked about was so if I happen to have a magic 

14 technique that causes my boxes to generate power 

15 rather than consume it, but it’s something that I’m 

16 not going to license to anyone else, DOE won’t 

17 consider it. That makes sense to the extent that 

18 power-generating Set-Top Boxes make sense. But I 

19 don’t know what this is, which is the other side of 

20 that. Is proprietary designs which it should 

21 consider.

22 MR. RIVEST: I agree with you, it seems 

23 like the question is poorly formulated.

24 MR. A. GOLDBERG: Okay. 

25 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Thanks, Mike. That 
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1 was Mike Rivest. Now to Charlie Stephens.

2 MR. STEPHENS: I’m Charlie Stephens. I’ve 

3 been doing this for about as long as Mike has, so 

4 I’ll try a stab here. I think if -- there could be 

5 multiple proprietary designs here, all of them 

6 leading to 30 percent energy savings. But the only 

7 place where you can really get the information 

8 required to analyze those three proprietary designs 

9 that all achieve the same level of efficiency is 

10 from the owner of the proprietary design, really. 

11 Unless you’ve sold the right to use it to somebody 

12 else, but the idea is that if -- this is an 

13 engineering analysis where you look at the cost of 

14 achieving a certain level of efficiency. Some of 

15 those things will be proprietary. There could be 

16 multiple ways to get to that level and all of them 

17 can be considered, but the data to do that can only 

18 come from the owner of the proprietary design.

19 MR. A. GOLDBERG: Yeah, okay. So let me 

20 see if I’ve got this right. So if I’m a 

21 manufacturer and I know that one product cycle away, 

22 say 18 months, I’m going to have some breakthrough. 

23 And I want DOE to consider that breakthrough is 

24 coming, I can somehow share that with DOE in a way 

25 that is protected somehow?
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1 MR. BROOKMAN: In this case, Navigant.

2 MR. A. GOLDBERG: Whatever. I’m sorry, 

3 I’m just trying to get the scheme right. And that 

4 seems -- it’s puzzling to me because we might be 

5 able to have something forecasted to come in 18 

6 months, might possibly be able to look at the 

7 product cycle after that. I mean, we’re talking 

8 about six years from now. There’s no proprietary 

9 data that anybody can give you that will tell you 

10 anything useful about what’s going to happen six 

11 years from now, so maybe that’s part of my 

12 confusion.

13 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Thank you.

14 MR. TSAO: I think we’ll address the time 

15 line and scope of what the engineering and costs --

16 I think that question came up before in terms of 

17 what efficiency levels we were talking about, and 

18 what time frame are we talking about in terms of 

19 cost and efficiency, and I think that should come up 

20 in the next slide or next few slides.

21 MR. BROOKMAN: Yes, Noah, please. Thank 

22 you.

23 MR. HOROWITZ: In terms of a higher than 

24 baseline, I think we can acknowledge that the higher 

25 than baseline product or the ones that are 
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1 delivering the significant savings that we’ve been 

2 talking about, aspirationally, that’s a next 

3 generation product and doesn’t exist, and you’re 

4 probably not going to be able to get your hands on a 

5 prototype. A lot of that, as Gary mentioned, the 

6 guts is on getting that new silica. So I agree with 

7 Gary, you should be talking to the silica vendors, 

8 and we could supplement the list, if needed, and you 

9 should also look at products outside the Set-Top Box 

10 world that might have implemented some of the same 

11 functionality, whether it’s an iPad, whether it’s an 

12 Ultra Book, whether it’s a Smart Phone, where it may 

13 be different silica, but the same sort of power 

14 savings schemes have already been implemented.

15 And in terms of your cost curve, it could 

16 be that dramatic energy savings were achieved 

17 through a system on a chip with little to no 

18 incremental cost. So there could be lessons learned 

19 there.

20 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Thank you. Let’s 

21 move on. 

22 MR. TSAO: Okay. So in general, to 

23 collect this data there’s sort of three general 

24 approaches that can be taken, and a combination of 

25 these could be used to generate sort of the cost 
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1 efficiency curve. Items says that the quickest 

2 method or the survey approach, where the efficiency 

3 is known relies on cost provided by the 

4 manufacturers, or various surveys to estimate the 

5 costs associated with certain efficiency levels. So 

6 this is we would come, saying, to meet, as an 

7 example, if we chose an efficiency level like Energy 

8 Star, we would say what does it cost to implement 

9 version three or version four of Energy Star or some 

10 other efficiency level?

11 The second approach, the designs options 

12 approach, which I think gets to sort of Noah’s idea 

13 in terms of technologies that are not necessarily 

14 commercially available as of right now. This would 

15 estimate cost and performance of specific designs, 

16 which could be based on sort of calculations, or 

17 preliminary test results, or simulation models to 

18 sort of identify if a sleep mode were implemented or 

19 something like that, what would an estimated 

20 efficiency look like and the costs associated with 

21 that.

22 The last approach is sort of the cost 

23 assessment approach, which is similar to the survey 

24 approach where the efficiency level’s already known, 

25 but the cost is then determined by a listing of 
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1 materials or a bill of materials from product tear 

2 downs that are existing on the market.

3 So in general, all of these are sort of --

4 can be mirrored in the design options approach, like 

5 a lot of feedback from manufacturers or service 

6 providers could be -- would be included.

7 So I’d like to open up the floor in 

8 general to any comments on approaches for describing 

9 -- any feedback on the outlined approaches or any 

10 other approaches that could be used to generate 

11 these cost efficiency curves, as well as comment on 

12 any of the methods described.

13 MR. BROOKMAN: Comments at this point? I 

14 don’t see any.

15 MR. TSAO: Okay. So once the cost 

16 efficiency curves are known, we develop what are 

17 called candidate standard levels, and they’ll range 

18 anywhere from the baseline case to the maximum 

19 technologically feasible case. And DOE is required 

20 to analyze what they call the max tech efficiency 

21 level, which is not necessarily the same as the max 

22 available. It may not be commercially available to 

23 look at. In order to get that kind of data, though, 

24 a lot of -- the interviews or interactions with 

25 manufacturers and service providers would be used to 
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1 sort of describe what the max tech model may look 

2 like. I think there’s a question?

3 MR. HERRICK: This is John Herrick. 

4 Celia, is that a statutory standard, that max tech 

5 level that is required?

6 MS. SHER: Yeah, I believe it is, but I 

7 can give that comment to Navigant and let you know.

8 MR. BROOKMAN: So, just for the record, 

9 Celia said she believes it is and she can provide 

10 that information. Thank you. Keep going.

11 MR. TSAO: And for the intermediate 

12 candidate standard levels, Energy Star values could 

13 be used or some other arbitrary values could be used 

14 to be determined by DOE.

15 So at this time, DOE would like comments 

16 on any of the approaches, basically, for improving 

17 the efficiency, including describing ways to 

18 describe a max tech model, you know, and information 

19 sort of on performance and incremental manufacturing 

20 cost would also be needed at some point, and if 

21 those are preferred through the manufacturer 

22 interviews, or if they prefer to be confidential, 

23 then that can be done too.

24 MR. BROOKMAN: And of course, whatever 

25 cannot be provided here today, this is the kind of 
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1 information in considerable detail that the 

2 Department would like to receive in writing. Yes, 

3 Gary.

4 MR. LANGILLE: I just had a comment on the 

5 phrasing of this issue it says “incremental 

6 manufacturing costs,” and I do want to stress -- I 

7 think Paul stressed this morning that it’s really 

8 not just manufacturing cost, it’s also -- I mean if 

9 we had to allocate a transponder on a satellite or 

10 other costs that may not be actually in the device, 

11 so just want to re-stress that.

12 MR. BROOKMAN: That’s a good point. It’s 

13 good to repeat the point. Andrew.

14 MR. DeLASKI: I want to follow up on that 

15 because this is the kind of question for you, Allen, 

16 and maybe you, Mike, based on your experience. I’m 

17 trying to think of other examples where this has 

18 come up, so typically we have a cost of energy curve 

19 that’s based on the technology. So you’re putting 

20 in -- you’re changing the widget in some way to make 

21 it more efficient, and you have to do things to that 

22 widget and that cost might go up because there’s 

23 more materials involved, the cost of engineering 

24 involved. But in this case, engineering is 

25 happening on other things that communicate with the 
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1 device, and I’m just curious -- so, is that 

2 reflected in the -- does that go in that curve 

3 somehow? How do we capture that? I don’t know how 

4 that’s been done in the past, or if there’s an 

5 analogy in prior rulemaking.

6 MR. BROOKMAN: I see Mike Rivest.

7 MR. RIVEST: Nothing approaching this 

8 level. So we always capture the cost of modifying 

9 manufacturing facilities, for example, the 

10 incremental tooling, the incremental research and 

11 development expenditures, and we capture that as a 

12 markup, basically, looking at an investment, 

13 depreciating it over many years, spreading it over 

14 a lot of material and labor costs. Here, you know, 

15 it also comes to the definition of who the 

16 manufacturer is. I mean, is it the box or is it 

17 the person downloading the software? So, depending 

18 on how we frame the manufacturer, I think allows us 

19 to incorporate those costs. I mean a lot of them 

20 are intellectual property type -- software 

21 development, but they’re real, and they would be 

22 marked up. They would be -- it would be a certain 

23 markup, maybe a doubling of the materials and labor 

24 to account for all that added value. But we’ll 

25 have to ask questions to understand what’s going 
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1 on.

2 MR. BROOKMAN: Paul.

3 MR. GLIST: So I think, to me, it’s a 

4 little bit beyond squeezing the service provider 

5 into the category of manufacturer, in that if max 

6 tech means that you have to consider all of the 

7 available models and we’re dealing realistically 

8 with architectures and eco systems, Gary said 

9 before, then make all the TV manufacturers take my 

10 Set-Top Box processing in house and do it that way. 

11 Or you could turn to me and say, why don’t you guys 

12 do everything in the cloud, you know, and stop all 

13 this head end nonsense? Right. How much -- when 

14 you say max tech, in this context, for this market, 

15 what are the bounds of what we’re supposed to think 

16 of as alternatives?

17 MR. BROOKMAN: Do you have a response on 

18 that one yet?

19 MR. RIVEST: Well, it gets to the 

20 definition of the product, again. If we think of 

21 the product as the function it serves, then it 

22 doesn’t really matter where it is, we draw the 

23 bounds there and the costs there. If it’s brought 

24 into the TV, we can’t just transfer the cost to the 

25 TV and ignore those costs.
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1 MR. GLIST: So for costing this out, you 

2 need to then look at the cost of the entire eco 

3 system of delivery?

4 MR. RIVEST: I don’t know if I’d use the 

5 word eco system, because that’s scary, but the cost 

6 of the function.

7 MR. GLIST: Well, no, even Noah and others 

8 have said, you know, maybe you’d do better putting 

9 the gateway furnace in the basement and putting 

10 six, eight tuners, whatever it is, serving the 

11 whole home. That’s one thing. It’s not a Set-Top 

12 Box the way we might think of it today, that’s one 

13 approach.

14 MR. RIVEST: I don’t look forward to doing 

15 that but I don’t think it should be excluded. 

16 Again, I don’t think we can shrink it into a 

17 partial function and give it an energy budget when 

18 we’re expecting the full function to be 

19 accomplished, and the costs are borne by others.

20 MR. BROOKMAN: I think you’re asking 

21 really good questions and the Department is 

22 benefiting from your descriptions of the 

23 complexity, and I’m also hoping that experts in the 

24 room can begin to describe how to make it work. I 

25 think that the questions might lead us, you, to be 
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1 able to describe some way that this is doable.

2 MR. RIVEST: Something I’d like to say --

3 MR. BROOKMAN: Mike Rivest.

4 MR. RIVEST: This is a fast moving 

5 technology, and there might be a temptation to jump 

6 right away to six years from now, but the problem 

7 is, there’s so much unknown. If we could take 

8 smaller steps, put some stakes in the ground, so 

9 that we start from a base that’s a little more 

10 certain -- I mean the product definitions are a 

11 little more clear and then we gradually move 

12 towards evolving technologies, evolving costs, so 

13 at least we get better accuracy on things that 

14 exist that we know, and we don’t immediately jump 

15 into the realm of 100 percent speculation. Maybe 

16 I’m just speaking for someone who’s going to have 

17 to do the analysis.

18 MR. BROOKMAN: Kuria.

19 MR. JOSEPH: This is Kuriacose from Direct 

20 TV. So along the same lines of the questions that 

21 are being asked, when doing this engineering 

22 analysis, is there going to be some assumption as 

23 to how the system is configured, be it a satellite 

24 system, head end satellite system, or whether it’s 

25 a cable system? And a corollary of this is by 
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1 coming up with the standards for Set-Top Boxes, is 

2 there going to be some push back to say your 

3 systems have to be designed to work in a certain 

4 way?

5 MR. BROOKMAN: Assumptions about 

6 configurations? Jeremy.

7 MR. DOMMU: Yeah, I mean at this point I 

8 think we haven’t performed that analysis yet and 

9 come to any conclusions as to those configuration 

10 issues. 

11 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Thank you. Mike 

12 Rivest.

13 MR. RIVEST: So if I understand the 

14 question, we have to perform an analysis so we’re 

15 going to have to make assumptions about how things 

16 are configured, so we say okay, this is how the 

17 system exists today, and this is how our more 

18 efficient system would look, and we try to get some 

19 agreement about that’s a reasonable assumption 

20 about how it might look under -- you know, if it’s 

21 more efficient. But there’s no prescription that 

22 that’s how it’s going to have to look. 

23 So if the goal is to reduce energy 

24 efficiency by 30 percent, we’ve identified a 

25 technology pathway together that gets you to 30 
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1 percent. We’ve determined it’s not the only way to 

2 get there, it’s not a proprietary way to get there, 

3 but it’s a reasonable way to get there. We cost 

4 that out. Once the rule is over, you find a better 

5 way, you do it that way. You do it your way and 

6 maybe technology’s evolved and it costs a fraction 

7 of that. We don’t know. Does that answer your 

8 question? I mean, you will never be forced to do 

9 it in a certain configuration.

10 MR. BROOKMAN: Kuria.

11 MR. JOSEPH: This is Kuriacose from Direct 

12 TV. It’s not the actual solution, but if there are 

13 some assumptions made in how a system operates 

14 which are not easily achievable, which cannot be --

15 let’s call it proprietary, as an example, is that 

16 something that is going to drive what the standard 

17 is for the Set-Top Box?

18 MR. RIVEST: So if the technology pathway 

19 identified to reduce energy by 30 percent is 

20 something that you feel is problematic, that’s 

21 something you have to comment on, and ... will know 

22 that that’s problematic for these reasons and here 

23 is another way that gives us better certainty of 

24 achieving the goal.

25 MR. BROOKMAN: Adam.
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1 MR. A. GOLDBERG: Okay. So I’ve heard --

2 this is Adam for TiVo. I’ve heard goal and then 

3 I’ve heard 30 percent. Are those -- I mean, are 

4 those numbers or were those examples.

5 MR. RIVEST: No, they’re absolutely made 

6 up numbers.

7 MR. A. GOLDBERG: Okay. I mean it seems 

8 like -- see if I’ve got this right. It seems like 

9 what’s been said just now is -- I don’t mean to 

10 pick on satellite, satellite systems -- but let’s 

11 say that today boxes consume 15 watts, and it’s 

12 conceivable that with technological innovations or 

13 something, you might be able to get to 10 or 12 

14 watts, not including LNBs. But you could get to 

15 say two watts, if you constructed a whole IP back 

16 channel. So if you required that every box be 

17 connected to the internet, you required that the 

18 satellite operations had a facility for bi19 directional communications with the box -- so right

20 now they’re listening to entitlement messages that 

21 get broadcast, and they have to be live to hear 

22 those messages. If we said, okay, one way to get 

23 to three or four or five watts is to spend this 

24 amount of money and require consumers have the 

25 internet and other things, it’s possible to make a 
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1 guess as to how much all that costs, add it up and 

2 decide whether or not that sort of solution is 

3 cost-effective, right? Is that one of the things 

4 that we’re going to be doing in all this process?

5 MR. RIVEST: So under your scenario, would 

6 everyone have to have access to the internet to 

7 make that work?

8 MR. A. GOLDBERG: Well, that’s one -- I 

9 mean in my hypothetical situation here, yes. The 

10 boxes would have to be connected to the internet. 

11 And there’s a cost associated with that to 

12 consumers, and energy costs as well. Furthermore, 

13 there’s costs and energy costs associated with this 

14 new equipment and data centers that the satellite 

15 providers would have to create, but I mean you can 

16 gain this all up and add it all up, but what I’m 

17 trying to get at is, this sort of calculation is 

18 what’s going to happen and because we have a whole 

19 system, we’re not limited to looking at just the 

20 box.

21 I understand that if we’re talking about a 

22 clock radio and say, okay, clock radios go down to 

23 about a watt for each model cycle, and then a 

24 couple model cycles we expect they’ll be down a 

25 couple of watts, and over time that’ll decrease to 
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1 very little changes and we can say, well it costs a 

2 dollar extra to make an alarm clock consume a watt 

3 less. In an isolated box like that, that’s the way 

4 you can do it. 

5 But in what we’re talking about, I think, 

6 it’s so -- it’s Gary’s balloon, right? If you poke 

7 on it here, it’s going to pop out there, so we’ve 

8 got to look at a whole system. So in order to make 

9 the calculations that I think that what I heard you 

10 talking about, we really need to do something 

11 broad-ranging, like what I just described. And I 

12 wonder if that’s really what we have in mind, or if 

13 it’s more constrained than that.

14 MR. RIVEST: Well, I didn’t say that we 

15 were -- so what I said is that if costs were being 

16 moved elsewhere they need to be captured. I didn’t 

17 say that there’s some -- that decision has been 

18 made about adopting a system approach whereby the 

19 Department has the legal right to force those types 

20 of infrastructure changes to make Set-Top Boxes 

21 more efficient. I don’t think, you know, I don’t 

22 know that that’s been --

23 MR. A. GOLDBERG: I’m not a lawyer, so I 

24 don’t --

25 MR. RIVEST: What I’m saying is we can’t 
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1 arbitrarily move costs out of the box and justify 

2 the standard, ignoring those costs, which is 

3 different from what you’re saying.

4 MR. A. GOLDBERG: All right. I don’t 

5 understand how that’s different. We have a whole 

6 system, and in large measure the power consumption 

7 of the Set-Top Boxes depends on how the system 

8 works. I mean I could make a satellite box that 

9 could consume zero watts in standby mode, but it 

10 wouldn’t work. And so -- right Gary? I mean, it 

11 wouldn’t work.

12 MR. LANGILLE: I’m sure not to your 

13 satisfaction.

14 MR. A. GOLDBERG: So I mean if -- if the 

15 standard, the eventual standard says satellite 

16 boxes need to consume less than five watts in stand 

17 by, and either one or the only way to do that has 

18 the effect of requiring these data centers and 

19 internet activity and a whole new architecture on 

20 things, you know, you’d have to consider those 

21 costs. I mean, if we say, okay, well, you’ve got 

22 to account for the costs that aren’t in the box, 

23 but we’re not going to account for the whole 

24 system, then I don’t know --

25 MR. RIVEST: No, that’s not what I said. 
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1 So the first question is, can we take that system 

2 view, and if we do, then we have to account for all 

3 the costs. I don’t think that first question’s 

4 been answered.

5 MR. A. GOLDBERG: Oh. I’m not sure how 

6 you could not.

7 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Gary.

8 MR. LANGILLE: Well, if we --

9 MR. RIVEST: Could not what?

10 MR. A. GOLDBERG: If we are not taking a 

11 systems view, then it seems that the only other 

12 assumption that we could make is that the system --

13 that all of our investigation needs to make an 

14 assumption that the systems stay as they are, and 

15 that only energy reduction opportunities that are 

16 considered are ones that allow the system to remain 

17 the same.

18 MR. RIVEST: So, you know, I’m not from 

19 this industry, so the word system here can mean a 

20 lot of things. If system means software that’s 

21 already been downloaded --

22 MR. LANGILLE: Well, let me give you an 

23 example.

24 MR. RIVEST: -- and modification of that 

25 software --
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1 MR. LANGILLE: I’m trying to give you a --

2 I’m making this up, this isn’t real. Let’s say 

3 that DOE interviews one of the semiconductor 

4 manufacturers, and they say, oh, yeah, we know how 

5 to save energy. We just need to get the satellite 

6 guys to triple the data rate on this one 

7 information stream, and piece of cake, won’t even 

8 increase the cost. So DOE goes off and says well, 

9 we’re going to recommend that this technology be 

10 used. But what’s not being taken into account is 

11 that for that satellite company to triple the data 

12 rate on that one stream may involve launching 

13 another damn satellite.

14 MR. RIVEST: All right. So how about this 

15 intermediate thing. What if a requirement were to 

16 enable those Set-Top Boxes in an area where the 

17 rate is three times, to save energy, without 

18 requiring that function to be enabled? So that 

19 there would be maybe one-third of consumers would 

20 save energy, and that would be cost-effective 

21 because --

22 MR. LANGILLE: I think that would be fine, 

23 but what you just admitted to was looking at the 

24 whole system, instead of just the box.

25 MR. RIVEST: I’m not admitting anything, 
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1 I’m just -- I’m just brainstorming with you here.

2 MR. LANGILLE: But by the statement you 

3 made, meant that you had to look at that system to 

4 know it would only go to a third --

5 MR. RIVEST: All right, well, this is an 

6 evolving thing here, right. So it’s -- so if we 

7 replace the word system thinking with system 

8 regulation, I think that’s the point that hasn’t 

9 been discussed. I think we need system thinking, 

10 because otherwise this doesn’t work. So can we 

11 have system thinking and system benefits without 

12 imposing system costs that, you know, where you may 

13 not have authority to regulate those satellite.

14 MR. BROOKMAN: I’d hate for us to just be 

15 totally speculative here, and it’d be nice if we 

16 could get back to concrete questions and answers 

17 and all. I know this is necessary to a degree. 

18 Adam first, then you.

19 MR. A. GOLDBERG: So I mean, I think, to 

20 me I think Gary laid it out rather clearly a few 

21 minutes ago. Our choices are either consider the 

22 costs end to end, the whole enchilada, or consider 

23 that everything outside of the Set-Top Box is fixed 

24 and talk about how much it costs to decrease 

25 consumption in the Set-Top Box over time. Because 
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1 if you --

2 MR. RIVEST: I don’t formulate it that 

3 way. I think we have to consider the costs 

4 everywhere, no matter what.

5 MR. A. GOLDBERG: Okay, but our choices 

6 are to consider the whole thing, because when you 

7 change something -- if you change something in the 

8 Set-Top Box, it’s going to have some effect on the 

9 network, and head ends, and the whole enchilada. 

10 And it’s the balloon. If you poke here, it’s going 

11 to pop out there, and you’ve got to deal with that. 

12 Or, you can not deal with that at all and 

13 just focus on the box itself. So it’s possible 

14 that the next generation of silicon, changing 

15 nothing about the network, the next generation of 

16 silicon is six, ten -- ten percent less power, and 

17 the following generation, 15 percent less power. 

18 We can calculate all that and we can draw curves or 

19 whatever, and come up with numbers. That’s fine 

20 and that might be a perfect way to do. 

21 But if we’re going to talk about things 

22 like deep sleep, there’s nothing you can do in the 

23 silicon that’s going to change the laws of physics 

24 to make it so that Gary’s message doesn’t get lost.

25 MR. RIVEST: Earlier I heard someone 
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1 mention that they had installed an Ethernet port on 

2 their box years before it was widely available, 

3 movies were available for download. So that’s what 

4 I’m thinking about. Is there a way of building in 

5 a feature that will benefit from those technology 

6 advances that won’t be a costly feature, and that 

7 we take five years of benefits by not having to 

8 replace those boxes when they come? That’s what I 

9 have in mind.

10 MR. BROOKMAN: Adam, let me let Gary 

11 follow on first, and then I’m coming back here.

12 MR. LANGILLE: Well, you mentioned trying 

13 to get more to a hard example. I think that to a 

14 large extent some of these new multi-room boxes 

15 that Direct TV and we just recently introduced were 

16 developed with the assumption that the system, the 

17 broadcast system, basically stays the way it is. 

18 But yet we were able to come up with different 

19 configurations of product, looking at a whole 

20 household perspective that saves almost 50 percent 

21 of the energy consumption of that household. But 

22 yet we didn’t change a single thing on the system.

23 So what I was proposing before was is 

24 that, you know, because of the complexity of this 

25 product area, maybe the first step that we take is 
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1 to assume that the systems will stay the same and 

2 let’s first look at sort of the low hanging fruit, 

3 and just look at things that don’t require any 

4 changes to the system. Now once we go through that 

5 process, we’re all going to be a lot more educated 

6 and then maybe we attack the next level, which is, 

7 you know, what changes to the system could be made 

8 that allow for even more energy savings.

9 MR. BROOKMAN: Getting to the thrust of 

10 Mike Rivest’s comments, we have received a bit of 

11 information from someone on the webinar, and it is 

12 -- what this person says is, the FCC has already 

13 required Set-Top Boxes to have IP interface by the 

14 year end 2012. No? Okay. Andrew’s next in the 

15 queue.

16 MR. DeLASKI: A couple of questions or 

17 points. One is that, Gary you make the point that 

18 maybe -- so there’s the hardware produced by the 

19 Ciscos and the Motorolas of the world, and then 

20 there’s what the service providers, how the service 

21 providers deploy and use that hardware, whether 

22 they’re satellite or cable companies or Telcos, and 

23 you might make changes -- it may be -- you just put 

24 up a hypothesis that the changes that you make to 

25 your system, and again, maybe I’m getting caught up 
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1 in the word system here, but the changes that you 

2 make to the system may be the harder things. 

3 And I guess I want to sort of test the 

4 hypothesis and would like this analysis to test 

5 this hypothesis, because it may be that the things 

6 that you guys do on your system with existing boxes 

7 may yield efficiency. And is that going to 

8 actually be cheaper on a per unit basis than 

9 changing the boxes? So I guess I want to think 

10 about the engineering choices, that they need to be 

11 considered together, the changes that you make, and 

12 the changes that the Ciscos and the Motorolas make. 

13 And that’s where you get that curve, the cost of 

14 energy curve, is a combination of those functions, 

15 of those changes. And if we disaggregate them, 

16 then I’m afraid we’re not going to be getting an 

17 accurate curve for what could be done. So really, 

18 you need to talk to both these guys, to the set of

19 providers to understand what that shape of that 

20 curve looks like.

21 MR. RIVEST: But remember, we’re measuring 

22 the energy on site, so that metric is a hard 

23 metric, where we can’t -- the energy that will be 

24 saved at Cisco’s headquarters of course will go 

25 wherever that energy is being consumed, is not part 
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1 of our test procedure. So I still think we’re 

2 limited to the energy on site that we’re measuring 

3 with the test procedure, the improvements that we 

4 can make in the box, and then the improvements we 

5 can make -- and that’s where there needs to be 

6 discussion -- the improvements that can be made on 

7 site through the connection to the network, either 

8 through the signals that are coming in. And the 

9 signals that are coming in, some may be simple --

10 I’m reluctant to use the word simple, but some may 

11 be more software, like more upgrades that you would 

12 do. Some may be massive hardware changes that 

13 would be very costly. But we are limited to what’s 

14 on site and what we measure with the test 

15 procedure.

16 MR. BROOKMAN: Charlie Stephens.

17 MR. DeLASKI: I have a second point if I 

18 could just finish.

19 MR. BROOKMAN: Yes, please.

20 MR. DeLASKI: To Adam’s point, or maybe it 

21 was Gary’s point about energy -- pushing energy 

22 use, the balloon question. We care about energy 

23 savings. So it’s important to us that we’re 

24 modeling what happens to energy consumption. So 

25 simply pushing it off, sort of outside the box or 
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1 this device isn't going to address our concerns. 

2 We want to know what’s happened to total energy 

3 consumption, so the Department does this in other 

4 rulemakings all the time, you know, when you make a 

5 change to one device, that does have impact on 

6 choices consumers make, and typically I think it’s 

7 important that we model that and understand how 

8 overall energy use changes.

9 MR. BROOKMAN: Charlie Stephens.

10 MR. STEPHENS: I’m Charlie Stephens. I 

11 think, just to kind of reiterate before I make a 

12 point. I’ve heard, through our own research in the 

13 past, at NEA, and around the table here that there 

14 are boxes out there that have functionality that’s 

15 not yet enabled by service providers or that isn't 

16 enabled by every service provider or that’s enabled 

17 differently by different service providers, and 

18 that could change, and that there might be a cost 

19 to implementing that or implementing those changes. 

20 I’ve also heard that there’s some potential for box 

21 changes that then could be implemented. And I 

22 believe we should take all those costs into 

23 account.

24 That being said, my constituents, the 130-

25 some utilities I represent, are obligated by law to 
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1 meet the power demands of this system, regardless 

2 of what everyone around this table decides to do. 

3 We’re interested in what the thing uses in the 

4 field, which is why we’re out there measuring it, 

5 and we’ll be coming back and we’ll be providing 

6 Mike data on -- by model, by system type, and by 

7 public service provider -- on a lot of households, 

8 and we’ll be setting up protocols where, if we need 

9 to, and Mike comes up short of data, we can maybe 

10 go get some more. And we may be recruiting some 

11 other people around the country to use those 

12 protocols to get some data from some other service 

13 provider networks so that we all have some 

14 consistent data.

15 So what he’s going to have is he’s going 

16 to have some nice time-stamped data that has when 

17 the television was on, and when it was off, and 

18 what the Set-Top Box was doing, when the DVR was 

19 going, when -- all of these things are going to be 

20 on there with time stamped data, watching what the 

21 box is doing, and we’re going to have that by 

22 provider network, and we’re going to ship it to 

23 Mike, so at least he’ll know what some of these 

24 boxes do when they’re deployed. And then he can 

25 ask questions about what he’s seeing, and hopefully 
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1 it will lead to some answers about whey there are 

2 differences when we see differences, and where they 

3 come from. And if we need more data, I’m going to 

4 put my budget out there, and if we need to, we’ll 

5 go get some more.

6 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Paul, you want to 

7 follow on here?

8 MR. GLIST: Well, it’s just an 

9 observation. I think people have said throughout 

10 the day that this is unique, unique situation, and 

11 what we’re all struggling with is trying to take a 

12 system that is basically designed for white goods -

13 - excuse me, and apply it to a dynamic network 

14 where functionalities, costs, are moving all across 

15 the ecosystem. And I think it’s really hard.

16 I think what’s incumbent on all of us is 

17 to provide you with enough suggestions in the 

18 written cycle so that we can do something 

19 practical. I think we may find that the ways that

20 the Department has historically analyzed this 

21 problem isn't suitable for applying to this market 

22 in the same way, that you may have to adjust your 

23 models and your analytical tools far beyond saying 

24 okay service provider is a manufacturer. It’s much 

25 more complicated.
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1 I’ll do my best to give you some 

2 suggestions, but I’m suggesting that also -- you’ve 

3 done a great job in explaining how you normally 

4 confront these issues over the decades, please be 

5 open to some greater flexibility on how we address 

6 this problem together.

7 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Thanks for that and 

8 I think we’ve uncovered a lot of the complexity, 

9 and in the last hour or so of discussion, some of 

10 the options that exist. I’m eager for us to keep 

11 pressing on, there’s a lot of content yet to cover, 

12 some of it maybe you don’t have full capture on 

13 right now, but I’m going to suggest we move on.

14 MR. TSAO: Okay. So the last step is, if 

15 you recall, we analyze certain product classes and 

16 develop cost efficiency curves for those 

17 representative product classes, and the last step 

18 is to sort of scale those product classes to any 

19 classes that were not analyzed for -- due to lack 

20 of availability or low market share.

21 Essentially some methods that we would 

22 consider for the -- depending on how and if the

23 product classes are defined, this scaling could be 

24 based on component difference, cost component 

25 differences, and energy differences between the 
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1 two, as well as sort of general architectural 

2 differences between the two types of product 

3 classes.

4 So the comment we have is when it comes to 

5 scaling, are there any sort of methodologies that 

6 would help us scale representative product classes 

7 to other product classes? You can think of the 

8 scaling as similar to the Energy Star where adders 

9 are sort of added on to the base product types, and 

10 in essence, the scaling would be how to derive 

11 those types of values to do that kind of scaling.

12 MR. BROOKMAN: Comments on scaling, 

13 because we’re going to have to pick up the pace 

14 here a little bit, otherwise, we’re not going to 

15 get through this content. Yes, please, Kuria.

16 MR. JOSEPH: Kuriacose from Direct TV. We 

17 have to be a little careful with this. For 

18 example, just saying that DVR box will work the 

19 same way for a cable system as for a satellite 

20 system is not necessarily true. The fact that 

21 there is a hard drive and we have only a one-way 

22 system, we might actually use the -- the results 

23 slightly differently just because the system is 

24 different. So we’ve got to be very careful with 

25 this kind of methodology.
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1 MR. TSAO: Right, and I think that’s where 

2 we would try to get a lot of feedback from 

3 stakeholders of well, we’re thinking this is a way 

4 to scale, does this sound reasonable? Does this 

5 methodology make sense? Or perhaps this scaling 

6 methodology is incorrect or invalid.

7 MR. BROOKMAN: Additional comments here? 

8 Okay. 

9 MR. TSAO: Another outside thing to 

10 consider are outside regulatory changes. So DOE 

11 will take into consideration the effects on 

12 manufacturers for other regulatory changes outside 

13 of the efficiency standards that are being outlined 

14 here. 

15 MR. BROOKMAN: Yes.

16 MR. N. GOLDBERG: Neal Goldberg, NCTA. 

17 I’m sorry I don’t understand what that means? What 

18 do you mean by regulatory changes? And I’m not 

19 sure how you define them in the context of an 

20 engineering analysis.

21 MR. TSAO: For example, and previously 

22 it’s been described that FCC required a cable card 

23 type thing, type access. So if FCC were to, or any 

24 other organization, were to impose some sort of 

25 regulation that automatically required additional 
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1 energy to be used by the Set-Top Box, that would be 

2 factored in into the cost and efficiency of those 

3 Set-Top Boxes in generating those curves.

4 MR. N. GOLDBERG: Okay. 

5 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you. So you can see 

6 the comment box there -- do you want to repeat what 

7 you’re looking for?

8 MR. TSAO: Yes, so we’re looking to see if 

9 there are any outside regulatory changes we need to 

10 be -- DOE needs to be considering in its analysis.

11 MR. BROOKMAN: That you see now, or 

12 anticipate in the not-too-distant future.

13 MR. TSAO: Right.

14 MR. BROOKMAN: Yes, Noah.

15 MR. HOROWITZ: Quick question. Either 

16 today or afterwards, if there’s anything going on 

17 on the FCC either potential or real that might 

18 impact this, whether it’s 911 communication, 

19 requiring or getting rid of the cable card, it 

20 would be great to have that input from the 

21 industry.

22 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Thank you. Nothing 

23 additional? Okay. 

24 MR. TSAO: Some just general other 

25 engineering issues that weren’t necessarily brought 
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1 up in the specific. Issue 27, you know, DOE is 

2 looking for just energy use and configurations of 

3 available Set-Top Boxes in the market. 

4 Additionally, as part of the analysis, and some of 

5 the methodologies did involve possibly testing Set6 Top Boxes or tearing down Set-Top Boxes to 

7 determine costs, DOE welcomes sort of information 

8 on how to conduct those tests, whether it would 

9 require DOE access to subscription or head end 

10 equipment to perform the tests, or if there are 

11 certain labs that should be used for testing. 

12 And additionally, acquiring the Set-Top 

13 Box units for purchase in order to perform -- if 

14 that’s the approach we take -- to generate a bill 

15 of material costing of Set-Top Boxes. And lastly, 

16 just sort of general technology and information 

17 regarding energy and cost data.

18 MR. BROOKMAN: Gary.

19 MR. LANGILLE: Just a quick question on 

20 27. When you say on energy use and configuration 

21 of current STBs in the market, are you -- is that 

22 currently available for sale, or just they’re out 

23 there? I mean Noah indicates this before, there’s 

24 a big difference that we’re seeing from the stuff 

25 that is already out there that was shipped in the 
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1 past five years versus some of the ones that will 

2 be shipped in 2012, and I think -- I mean I can’t 

3 think of a better source of information, actually, 

4 than the Energy Star list, because it’s even sort 

5 of more robust this year because it’s required the 

6 use, since version three, it requires the use of an 

7 outside certified lab to verify the testing. It’s 

8 not a self-verification or anything, so it’s got to 

9 be very reliable data.

10 MR. BROOKMAN: So and that list -- how far 

11 back does that equipment go?

12 MR. LANGILLE: The program was only 

started September 1st

14 MR. BROOKMAN: So it’s all --

13 , so --

15 MR. LANGILLE: It’s mostly all new stuff, 

16 what’s currently being shipped or will be shipped 

17 shortly.

18 MR. BROOKMAN: Adam.

19 MR. A. GOLDBERG: But it’s by no means 

20 all-inclusive.

21 MR. LANGILLE: That’s right.

22 MR. A. GOLDBERG: For example, as I 

23 understand it, Katharine will correct me if I’m 

24 wrong, but I don’t believe there’s any TiVo

25 products on that list for Set-Top equipment.
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1 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. So the Department 

2 will really benefit from anybody that’s got this 

3 kind of data or structure for data collection.

4 MR. CYMBALSKY: This is John Cymbalsky. 

5 We’ll take all the data that you have, and then I 

6 think we can filter through what is relevant, and 

7 if it’s stuff that’s five years old and we know 

8 you’re not going to sell it anymore, probably not 

9 very relevant.

10 MR. BROOKMAN: We’re going to keep 

11 pressing ahead.

12 MR. TSAO: Okay. At this time, Louis, 

13 from LBL will talk about the downstream analysis.

14 Downstream Analysis: Energy use Characterization

15 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: So I will describe 

16 the rest of the data analysis steps that normally 

17 go into a typical rulemaking analysis. I’ll start 

18 with the energy use characterization.

19 The purpose of the energy use analysis is 

20 to determine an accurate in-field characterization 

21 of the devices. Because the test procedure and the 

22 engineering as we’ve discussed earlier today is 

23 likely to involve a total energy consumption 

24 metric, the transition to an annual energy use is 

25 going to be somewhat simple. But at the same time, 
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1 DOE takes into account the variation that is out 

2 there in terms of consumer usage of these devices. 

3 And so when the energy use analysis is carried out, 

4 DOE typically uses the fully distribution that is 

5 available from all the data that we have at our 

6 disposal.

7 DOE will typically likely use typical 

8 television viewing habits and any other Set-Top Box 

9 usage data that we have to develop these 

10 distributions of operating hours. And again, this 

11 is an attempt to capture the full variability out 

12 there in the general user population.

13 So DOE seeks to obtain any relevant energy 

14 use information on this topic, and if the range of 

15 energy use is found to be very large, DOE will 

16 conduct sensitivity analysis to determine how the 

17 high and low energy use cases impact the standard, 

18 and how it impacts economic feasibility of the 

19 standard. DOE welcomes any recommendations on 

20 sources of data to do this energy use 

21 characterization.

22 MR. BROOKMAN: And let’s consider 31 and 

23 32 at the same time, since they’re linked. 

24 Comments on how the usage profiles are different or 

25 similar, and comment on end use issues that could 
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1 impact energy use analysis. Adam.

2 MR. A. GOLDBERG: Can you tell me what a 

3 sensitivity analysis is?

4 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: So the, at the end 

5 of the day, there’s the national impact analysis 

6 and cost analysis that will produce a single result 

7 that compares all the different standard cases to a 

8 base case. A sensitivity analysis looks at the 

9 extremes and sees -- if you take a somewhat 

10 unlikely, but extreme scenario, how does that 

11 impact the overall number? And if the end answer 

12 changes substantially, that is a sensitivity we 

13 have to take into consideration, and if it doesn’t 

14 change substantially, then that sensitivity 

15 analysis shows that the extreme cases in the inputs 

16 don’t matter that much.

17 MR. BROOKMAN: Let’s return to the issue 

18 boxes here: sources of data, how usage profiles are 

19 different or similar for each product, and end use 

20 issues that could impact energy use analysis. 

21 Nothing at this time. Okay, we know there’s data 

22 coming from some sources. Keep going.

23 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: We appreciate any 

24 and all data.

25 MR. BROOKMAN: the Department’s made that 
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1 very, very clear, especially in this case, any and 

2 all, right. Okay. Yes, Charlie Stephens.

3 MR. STEPHENS: Charlie Stephens. One 

4 thing I didn’t mention is that you will also get 

5 full demographics for all of these households to go 

6 along with it, so including the ages of the 

7 occupants.

8 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: That will be very 

9 much appreciated.

10 MR. BROOKMAN: It’s too bad they didn’t 

11 live all over the country, Charlie, not just in the 

12 northwest.

13 MR. STEPHENS: I’m working on that.

14 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. We’re moving on.

15 Markups for Product Price Determination

16 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: So the next 

17 analysis step is the markups for product price 

18 determination. And this is -- so when we do 

19 markups analysis, there’s two parts to it. One, 

20 the first set of markups is done in engineering 

21 analysis and that’s to determine, again, this is 

22 what the DOE typically does -- this is to determine 

23 the markups from the manufacturer to the next stage 

24 in the distribution channel. The purpose of this 

25 analysis is to figure out the rest of the markups 
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1 down to the consumer. And I’ll talk about the 

2 unique issues in a second for Set-Top Boxes.

3 So again, DOE typically analyzes the 

4 markups to the consumer and then -- in order to do 

5 that, it identifies the distribution channels and 

6 if relevant, any kind of sales tax that may be 

7 applicable. DOE can collect retail price data 

8 where available, but we also appreciate any data 

9 that are submitted. DOE typically uses US Census 

10 Bureau for its rulemakings, and particularly the 

11 manufacturing series and the business expenditure 

12 survey for some of these markups.

13 Now, as we’ve discussed several times, 

14 there’s some unique issues with Set-Top Boxes and 

15 this issue of the markup to the consumer is 

16 different for this product, and the equipment price 

17 actually paid by an individual consumer may be 

18 difficult to assess. Some of these devices are 

19 potentially free to the consumer in the sense that 

20 there’s no line item charge, but it’s likely to be 

21 included in a base subscription fee. Sometimes 

22 there is a line item charge. Some of the 

23 additional features have explicit costs associated 

24 in the monthly billing, and some of these devices 

25 are purchased through retail. And so there’s a 
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1 variety of different pricing mechanisms here which 

2 makes for a more complicated markup analysis.

3 The exact pricing strategy of service 

4 providers is proprietary, and as I said before, 

5 there’s a mix of availability of distribution 

6 channels for Set-Top Boxes.

7 So possible solutions to address these 

8 unique challenges. We again can have confidential 

9 submission of data on the pricing structure that is 

10 used by service providers to accurately model how 

11 costs are passed to consumers. We can also attempt 

12 to use simplifying assumptions if that is found to 

13 be necessary.

14 And so DOE welcomes feedback and data on 

15 how to properly address the equipment price markups 

16 for Set-Top Boxes and how to accurately assess what 

17 consumers are paying for them.

18 MR. BROOKMAN: Yes, Noah.

19 MR. HOROWITZ: Noah, NRDC. One thing that 

20 hasn’t come up and will affect these calculations 

21 is what is the assumed lifetime of the box? I 

22 would hope industry could provide data. Rule of 

23 thumb is five, six years. I don’t know if that’s 

24 still accurate. That will impact things. Also, in 

25 some cases the box is leased for a cost, could be 
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1 eight, ten, $12.00 a month for a DVR plus HD. If 

2 that box lasts six years, there could be over $600 

3 in revenue, which could be more than the cost of 

4 the box, and hopefully that will be considered in 

5 these calculations. 

6 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Additional comments 

7 on these kinds of pricing issues. Paul.

8 MR. GLIST: I would just say it’s even 

9 more complicated than you’ve indicated in that I’m 

10 not quite sure, thinking of it as a markup over the 

11 materials is right in industries that in some 

12 cases, where they’re not under the same rate 

13 regulation that cable is, it’s rolled into the 

14 service price. What are you doing to identify 

15 what’s flowed through? What does markup mean in 

16 that context. And for cable, what does the 

17 customer pay for in the lease over years? Are they 

18 paying for the materials? Are they paying for 

19 their repair? Are they paying for insurance 

20 against obsolescence of the box, because they can 

21 turn it in for the next model? You know, what is 

22 it that you’re trying to measure? I actually don’t 

23 have answers to this, but I’m just sensitizing you 

24 to the fact that it’s even more unique than the 

25 slide shows.
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1 MR. BROOKMAN: And it’s tied to your 

2 distinctive business models, correct?

3 MR. GLIST: Well, partly business models, 

4 partly regulatory constraints that cable is under a 

5 regulatory regime that satellite is not when it 

6 comes to box pricing.

7 MR. BROOKMAN: I’m asking the question 

8 because in order for DOE to take a good run at 

9 this, I guess they’re going to be asking you for 

10 some kind of sensitive information.

11 MR. GLIST: Well, in many cases for cable, 

12 it’s public. There are forms that lay out box 

13 pricing. But if you step back for a moment and you 

14 try to account for, oh, but the FCC makes me give 

15 away free boxes in these situations, or satellite 

16 doesn’t have to price it separately on the invoice, 

17 it’s just, in the end the consumer pays for every 

18 cost that is imposed on service providers. All I’m 

19 saying is that it may not be as easy to track as 

20 you’re hoping for.

21 MR. BROOKMAN: Neal, go ahead.

22 MR. N. GOLDBERG: Let me just add that by 

23 statute, cable operators are allowed to aggregate 

24 their equipment in different equipment pools so 

25 that the price that the consumer pays, even with 
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1 whatever markups, does not necessarily reflect the 

2 cost of that particular box, because it’s an 

3 average price out of a pool.

4 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you. Yes, Gary.

5 MR. LANGILLE: I was also just going to 

6 comment that one of the key measures, financial 

7 measures for most service providers is what’s 

8 called SAC or subscriber acquisition costs, and 

9 it’s often reported as part of their financial 

10 statements and basically what that summarizes is 

11 what the service provider has invested up front to 

12 bring -- to allow that customer to receive the 

13 service. So, as Noah had indicated, when you’re 

14 looking at like, you know, $5.00 a month to pay for 

15 the cable box, you first have to pay back the 

16 subscriber acquisition cost before the company 

17 actually starts making any money.

18 MR. BROOKMAN: And where is that now?

19 MR. LANGILLE: Lots of times it’s reported 

20 as part of financial information. The industry 

21 tends to -- financial analysts, when they look at 

22 service provider industries, look at how much does 

23 it cost to obtain a subscriber, and those numbers 

24 are usually published. Then they also list R pool 

25 -- average revenue per user. That’s another 
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1 measure that is published information and you may 

2 be able to assemble those from all of the different 

3 players and draw some rough conclusions as to cost 

4 to allow a subscriber to gain access to service.

5 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Thank you. 

6 Additional comments on these costs and ways that 

7 you might think about the markups or whatever the 

8 word would be? Nothing additional? Okay. 

9 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: So we’ve already 

10 discussed this quite a bit, but DOE does recognize 

11 that there are network infrastructure issues with 

12 Set-Top Boxes, and on one of the -- for the markups 

13 question, one of the issues is how these costs end 

14 up being passed to consumers. And we’ve discussed 

15 this quite a bit already today, but we’d like to 

16 emphasize again that DOE seeks feedback and any 

17 data that would help us identify how these network 

18 infrastructure issues and these costs are passed on 

19 to consumers.

20 MR. BROOKMAN: Additional comments on 

21 that? Okay. 

22 Life Cycle Cost Analysis

23 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: So the next stage 

24 of the analysis is the life cycle cost analysis and 

25 payback period analysis. This is one of the two 
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1 main economic outputs of the whole analysis, along 

2 with the National Impact Analysis. The life cycle 

3 cost assesses the impact on individual consumers, 

4 and the payback period is the period after which 

5 consumers gain in annual operating savings the 

6 increased cost of the more efficient boxes.

7 The life cycle cost in this case is the 

8 first cost or any cost of obtaining the device, 

9 plus the sum of all the annual operating cost for 

10 running the device over the lifetime. And all of 

11 these values are discounted to a particular year, 

12 and the present value. The analysis models the 

13 uncertainty and the variability and all of the 

14 inputs, and I’ll go into some detail with all the 

15 inputs, but the main thing I want to stress here is 

16 this is an analysis that’s done with input 

17 distributions and uses Monte Carol simulation to 

18 assess the full range of variability in the market.

19 DOE typically conducts this analysis using 

20 Excel spreadsheets, along with Crystal Ball, which 

21 is a commercially available add-on which allows us 

22 to use Monte Carlo simulations. This flow chart is 

23 again a typical example of a life cycle cost 

24 analysis. All the yellow boxes are inputs, the 

25 green boxes are intermediate outputs, and the blue 
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1 boxes are the two main outputs. So at the top left 

2 there are the results from an engineering analysis, 

3 so these are the baseline, and the higher 

4 efficiency prices for all the devices. There are 

5 then markups, or however we characterize it, some 

6 kind of additional costs that are added to those 

7 materials cost to arrive at equipment prices. 

8 There is a question right now.

9 MR. BROOKMAN: Yes, please.

10 MR. A. GOLDBERG: I’m sort of curious that 

11 the total installed -- how does this sort of 

12 analysis deal with subscription costs. Some boxes 

13 are sold with a monthly subscription which, I mean 

14 it’s sort of arbitrary whether the cost of the box 

15 is in the cost of the box or a monthly service 

16 charge.

17 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: So the LCC is 

18 conducted over the full life-time of the device, so 

19 if the equipment price is annualized over several 

20 years, then it’ll just be added as part of that 

21 analysis.

22 MR. A. GOLDBERG: So TiVo sells a box for 

23 a price with a monthly subscription cost. I 

24 suppose I could sell that box for $100 less and 

25 charge a dollar more a month. I could sell it for 
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1 $200 more and charge $2.00 less a month or 

2 something. Where does that fit in -- because the 

3 monthly cost is a service charge and includes a lot 

4 more than just the box, right. So how can you 

5 account for that in this sort of analysis. It’s 

6 not -- the monthly fee is not anything that I can 

7 easily put into one of those boxes.

8 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: So that goes back 

9 to what we were talking before about the markups 

10 and how the costs are passed on to consumers. DOE 

11 is interested in the equipment cost, and so if 

12 that’s folded into a monthly charge that includes 

13 both, you know, partially annualized equipment 

14 cost, but also content cost, as part of this 

15 analysis we’re interested in the equipment cost, 

16 and so we would need to look at some data to show 

17 what percentage of that monthly charge is for the 

18 equipment.

19 MR. BROOKMAN: Charlie Stephens.

20 MR. STEPHENS: Charlie Stephens. I’ll try 

21 and explain that a little differently and that is, 

22 you would have to make a case that the more 

23 efficient box would require a different monthly 

24 subscription cost than the less efficient box, or 

25 would it be the same regardless of how you charge 
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1 it. So the real key is agreeing what the cost of 

2 the box is in the base case, and then looking at 

3 how that changes with each efficiency level and 

4 unless you can make a case that this new box, 

5 because it’s more efficient comes with a different 

6 monthly service cost, I presume that DOE might 

7 assume that the subscription cost stays the same 

8 and the box price changes. 

9 MR. A. GOLDBERG: I’m sorry, so I’m being 

10 required to supply some information of some sort?

11 MR. STEPHENS: Not necessarily. They’ll 

12 guess at it, I guess, if you don’t. I mean they 

13 have to come up with some estimate of what the box 

14 cost is at the base case. That’s the engineering 

15 analysis that we discussed before lunch.

16 MR. A. GOLDBERG: Good luck.

17 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: So just to wrap up 

18 this slide, again, at the bottom there, there are 

19 other inputs including the energy use 

20 characterization which is described later. It’s 

21 also described by an input distribution. We also 

22 model energy prices and that’s -- I’ll discuss that 

23 in a bit more detail afterwards.

24 If applicable, the LCC analysis will 

25 include any kind of repair or maintenance cost over 
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1 the lifetime of the Set-Top Box, and you get 

2 intermediate output, which is the annual operating 

3 expense, and I’ll discuss in a bit more detail the 

4 lifetime assumptions that are used. There is a 

5 discount rate that’s applied to all future costs 

6 and savings, and there’s also an incorporation of 

7 future energy price trends. And all of those 

8 inputs give a lifetime operating expense for the 

9 device. And the combination of the equipment cost 

10 and lifetime operating expenses discounted to a 

11 given year, is the life cycle cost of the device. 

12 And the comparison between the base case and any 

13 standards case gives the changes that would -- the 

14 potential economic impact from an energy 

15 conservation standard.

16 So just a quick word on some of these 

17 inputs. The energy prices, we use electricity 

18 prices developed by the Energy Information 

19 Administration’s annual energy outlook that 

20 characterizes all the electricity costs. The costs 

21 are available for 13 regions, so as part of the 

22 full Monte Carlo simulation and description of all 

23 the variability in the general user population, we 

24 use a variety of electricity rates to characterize 

25 this.
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1 At this time, DOE welcomes any comment on 

2 the proposed methodology of using energy prices 

3 from the AEO.

4 MR. BROOKMAN: Any additional inputs, 

5 comments on energy prices? I see none.

6 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: And also just the 

7 clarify, the AEO provides future electricity 

8 prices, so we use their forecasts.

9 The life cycle cost analysis includes 

10 discount rates to determine the present value of 

11 all future costs and savings to a given year. DOE 

12 typically uses a distribution, again, of discount 

13 rates in the residential sector. These 

14 distributions are developed by estimating the 

15 weighted average cost of capital for the 

16 residential consumers and as is interpreted in this 

17 analysis, the discount here represents the 

18 financial cost, but the as to manufacturing 

19 represents the financial cost of any debt that is 

20 incurred to purchase products with an increased 

21 price as a result of the standard. It also 

22 represents the opportunity cost of any equity used 

23 to purchase products that have an increased price 

24 as a result of an energy conservation standard.

25 DOE typically uses, from the Federal 
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1 Reserve Board, the survey of consumer finances to 

2 determine what the full range of debt in asset 

3 classes is for residential consumers, as well as 

4 the distribution of -- and the shares of those debt 

5 and asset classes in the residential sector. It 

6 also determines the appropriate interest rates to 

7 use for all of those. And so at the end of the day 

8 there’s a full distribution of discount rates that 

9 are used to characterize the residential sector.

10 At this time DOE welcomes any comments and 

11 proposed approaches for estimating discount rates.

12 MR. BROOKMAN: Paul.

13 MR. GLIST: You recognize that this is 

14 designed for purchase by a consumer of a durable 

15 and so how would you adjust it for application to a 

16 service provider’s pricing on a lease plus service 

17 basis?

18 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: That is an 

19 excellent question. That has not been fully 

20 developed.

21 MR. N. GOLDBERG: Where the box can be 

22 returned.

23 MR. BROOKMAN: Neal.

24 MR. N. GOLDBERG: And substituted.

25 MR. BROOKMAN: Yes, Neal.
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1 MR. N. GOLDBERG: Where the box can be 

2 returned if there’s a newer model or it breaks and 

3 substituted by the service provider at no cost, at 

4 least for the swap.

5 MR. BROOKMAN: Can either of you say how a 

6 discount rate model would be adapted or morphed 

7 into something that would work for those 

8 applications?

9 MR. GLIST: I don’t know at this time.

10 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Thank you. Andrew 

11 DeLaski.

12 MR. DeLASKI: If the owner of the box is 

13 the cable company, use the cable company’s cost of 

14 capital. I mean it’s different for TiVo, the TiVo

15 box is owned by the customer, as Adam described for 

16 us. The question is who owns the box. It’s their 

17 cost of capital. That’s what you want, so again, 

18 this is a generic spot where I think how things are 

19 typically done. In this case, as you’ve heard 

20 before, is different and you need to find the cost 

21 of capital of the owner of the box.

22 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Let’s keep going.

23 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: DOE also takes into 

24 account any installation, maintenance and repair 

25 costs as part of this life cycle cost analysis. 
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1 DOE currently does not have any information that 

2 installation, maintenance or repair costs are 

3 different for more efficient Set-Top Boxes, so we’d 

4 appreciate any comment and data submitted on that.

5 There has been a question about Set-Top 

6 Box lifetimes. That is an input to this life cycle 

7 cost analysis. DOE typically uses information from 

8 manufacturer literature -- back up --

9 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Adam, please. Go 

10 ahead.

11 MR. A. GOLDBERG: Sorry. The cost of a 

12 box is partially hardware, partially allocated NRE, 

13 and partially a whole bunch of licenses. I assume 

14 that’s accounted for in some fashion?

15 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: It can be, yeah.

16 MR. A. GOLDBERG: Well, okay, I recommend 

17 that it seriously be, because I suspect you’ll find 

18 that it’s a significant portion of the price of the 

19 device. Thank you.

20 MR. BROOKMAN: Adam, I’m sure you realize 

21 and everyone else in the room realizes that, 

22 especially since this is a product that’s different 

23 from many other standard-setting products, that 

24 your describing these things in considerable detail 

25 in your written comments will help them and 
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1 ultimately get the Department closer to something 

2 that you will find sensible. Right?

3 MR. A. GOLDBERG: I understand.

4 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Just want to be 

5 clear. Keep going.

6 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: So, as I was 

7 saying, DOE typically uses information from 

8 manufacturer literature or technical reports, 

9 conference proceedings, expert opinion, inputs from 

10 manufacturers and all interested parties on what 

11 Set-Top Box lifetimes are. Again, DOE uses a 

12 distribution of lifetimes based on the available 

13 data. As was mentioned already, DOE is aware that 

14 the lifetime of a Set-Top Box can be influenced by 

15 equipment returns and refurbishments, and that will 

16 need to be incorporated into estimating the 

17 appropriate Set-Top Box lifetime. 

18 So at this time DOE welcomes any comment 

19 on Set-Top Box lifetimes and how returns and 

20 refurbishments should be handled.

21 MR. BROOKMAN: Gary.

22 MR. LANGILLE: Just a comment that it’s to 

23 my knowledge that most service providers have a 

24 fairly large return rate, meaning, you know, people 

25 switch providers often, return rates of one to two 
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1 percent per month are common, so a lot of equipment 

2 comes back to the service provider, gets cleaned 

3 up. I guess the term remanufactured is used 

4 sometimes, although that may be an exaggeration, 

5 and sent out to a new subscriber. So I just want 

6 to make sure that DOE is aware that that’s the way 

7 that the industry works, and in certain times, 

8 depending on your performance of adding subscribers 

9 or losing subscribers, you can have quite a bit of 

10 remanufactured equipment. So it should be 

11 considered.

12 MR. BROOKMAN: Jeremy.

13 MR. DOMMU: Absolutely, and again, please 

14 provide information that could help us with that 

15 analysis in terms of what those turn rates are and 

16 what the retirements are, and the useful life, and 

17 we’ll be able to build it into our analysis.

18 MR. BROOKMAN: Yes, Noah.

19 MR. HOROWITZ: I’ll be very quick. And 

20 then it would be good for DOE to make explicitly 

21 clear if those boxes that are redeployed, whether 

22 they’re tweaked a little bit or a lot, if and when 

23 that might constitute a new box that would be 

24 covered by the regulation or not.

25 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: I’m sorry, I didn’t 
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1 have the thing on. 

2 MR. DOMMU: For the record, the question 

3 was would redeployed boxes and whether they’re 

4 modified a little bit or a lot, subject them to 

5 regulation.

6 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you. Okay.

7 Shipments Analysis

8 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: So the next stage 

9 of the analysis is the shipments analysis. The 

10 purpose of the shipments analysis is to estimate 

11 future shipments for both a base case and the 

12 standards case. The shipment model typically 

13 relies on a variety of data sources, and more is 

14 better. DOE typically uses manufacturer or 

15 industry data to do a shipments analysis. It also 

16 uses national market research reports, and any 

17 national energy use surveys, and any other data 

18 that can be used to determine future shipments.

19 DOE typically uses an accounting 

20 methodology, whereby new shipments are generally 

21 driven by one of three effects, new installations 

22 or the construction of new homes, and so in this 

23 case it would be Set-Top Boxes that are installed 

24 in new homes, and there’s a housing projection out 

25 of the Energy Information Administration’s annual 
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1 energy outlook that is used for this purpose. And 

2 also replacements when devices fail and the devices 

3 are replaced in the field, and also retrofits or 

4 early replacements of devices that are replaced 

5 before they have failed. 

6 We recognize, again, that this is a unique 

7 product, and so there’s another option that DOE can 

8 use, which is an option -- a model that is driven 

9 by total forecasting growth. This shipments model 

10 is much more of a top-down model. It’s not 

11 primarily driven by new construction, but it’s just 

12 based on total shipments and is just an overall 

13 industry analysis. The total shipments can then be 

14 correlated to any kind of housing projections or 

15 any kind of population projections and this may be 

16 a more suitable methodology if the penetration of 

17 Set-Top Boxes in homes is changing rapidly.

18 And so there’s a base case shipments 

19 forecast as conducted, and this is the basis for of 

20 the comparisons to all of the standards scenarios. 

21 This is a situation that depicts no energy 

22 conservation standards. It includes the current 

23 and forecasted mix of all Set-Top Box efficiencies 

24 that are in the market, in the absence of new 

25 regulation, and if the market share by efficiency 
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1 is projected to change without the adoption of 

2 energy conservation standards, that is included in 

3 the base case. And DOE, again, typically will rely 

4 on the best available data and market trends to 

5 determine these market share efficiencies.

6 The data requirements obviously are 

7 historical shipments that need to be broken down by 

8 the product classes, and the particular market 

9 share efficiency data are required in order to 

10 properly analyze any trends in efficiency.

11 DOE then does a standards case for Set-Top 

12 Box shipments, and it’s very similar to the base 

13 case and it uses the same data. The standards 

14 forecast can include two effects. One is a non15 interactive effect in which, for example, if 

16 increased device costs cause an overall reduction 

17 in shipments, that can be included as part of the 

18 standards case analysis. And similarly, if 

19 increased device cost cause a shift in the product 

20 class market shares, that is also included in the 

21 shipments analysis, and that’s known as an 

22 interactive effect. And DOE also considers any 

23 impact from market pool programs.

24 So at this time DOE welcomes any 

25 recommendations on data sources for the shipments 
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1 analysis by product class. And DOE also welcomes 

2 comment on the methodologies for conducting the 

3 shipments analysis and how -- any how any potential 

4 standard for Set-Top Boxes might impact these 

5 shipments or the relative market share between 

6 product classes.

7 MR. BROOKMAN: Comments? Data sources, 

8 shipment forecasts, methodologies? How any can 

9 affect shipments -- please. Your name.

10 MS. SANFORD: Jen Sanford with Cisco. I 

11 have a clarification question about what’s included 

12 in your base case. You were saying that if there 

13 were existing efficiencies that are in the market 

14 that would be included in the base case. So, for 

15 example, Energy Star compliant boxes will be 

16 included in the base case, is that correct?

17 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: Yes, that’s 

18 correct. Any existing programs that are known to 

19 be coming into effect will be included in the base 

20 case, and any trends in the market based on 

21 efficiency will be included in the base case.

22 MS. SANFORD: And can you give an example 

23 of what a market pull program is?

24 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: Like Energy Star.

25 MS. SANFORD: Okay. Thanks.
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1 MR. BROOKMAN: Additional comments on 

2 issue 38, 39, and 40? Okay. 

3 National Impact Analysis

4 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: The national impact 

5 analysis is the second major analysis that is 

6 conducted in support of energy conservation 

7 standards, and the two main outputs of the national 

8 impacts analysis are the total national energy 

9 savings that are projected, and the net present 

10 value of the economic benefits of those savings.

11 The national impact analysis is an 

12 assessment of the aggregate national impacts of any 

13 potential energy conservation standard on each of 

14 the different product classes. And it’s the total 

15 impact on consumers. And so the national impact 

16 analysis uses LCC results as an input and scales it 

17 to include the entire nation. The difference 

18 between base case scenarios and standard case 

19 scenarios give rise to a difference in increased 

20 equipment expenditures and annual bill savings, and 

21 the difference between those two is the net present 

22 value. 

23 This is just a flow diagram of calculation 

24 of the national energy savings and the shipments 

25 analysis feeds into both the base case scenario and 
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1 all the standards case scenarios. DOE typically 

2 uses a 30 year period to do its analysis and that 

3 has been constant for all the rulemakings, and 30 

4 years is used to help compare across different 

5 rulemakings. And so why the year is indicated here 

6 from 2019 and 2048.

7 And so in both cases the annual energy 

8 consumption is calculated and estimated for all the 

9 years and then a cumulative energy use is 

10 calculated for both the base case and the standards 

11 case. This energy use is a site electricity use, 

12 so it’s energy use in the home. DOE then converts 

13 this site electricity use into a source, primary 

14 energy use, so this is the energy that is used by 

15 the utilities to generate that electricity, and 

16 furthermore, full fuel cycle effects are considered 

17 as well. And so these are all the extra energy 

18 costs that are needed to extract the primary fuel 

19 for the utilities. And so that gives a total 

20 primary energy use calculation for both the 

21 standards case and the base case. And the 

22 difference between those is the national energy 

23 savings of any potential energy conservation 

24 standard.

25 This is a flow diagram of the consumer 
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1 economic impacts to calculate the net present 

2 value. So again, the shipments analysis feeds into 

3 both the base case scenarios and all the standards 

4 case scenarios, and then there are equipment costs, 

5 maintenance and repair costs, and energy costs. 

6 And so on the one side you will have over the 20 

7 year period, a cumulative operating savings as a 

8 result of potential energy conservation standards, 

9 but you also have a cumulative equipment cost, 

10 increases as a result of potential energy 

11 conservation standards. And then both of those are 

12 discounted to the present year, and the difference 

13 is the net present value. And in this case a 

14 positive value indicates a net consumer benefit.

15 So as I’ve said before, DOE typically uses 

16 a 30 year period to conduct the national impact 

17 analysis, and there are several examples of these 

18 calculations on the DOE website, and the 

19 spreadsheets are made.

20 MR. BROOKMAN: Comment, Tom.

21 MR. ECKMAN: Yeah, given the expected 

22 lifetime of these and the regularity of an update 

23 cycle going forward, even if they enter the market 

24 -- say they’re something on the order of a five to 

25 seven year product, I don’t know what it is, but 
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1 something on that order, to go forward 30 years, 

2 you go through multiple cycles of this. It seems 

3 that’s a pretty extended period to look at the 

4 impacts of this, given that there’s another 

5 regulatory impact five to six years after that that 

6 might change the standard, so even maybe 10 to 20 

7 years might be the outside of the impact of this 

8 particular regulation.

9 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you. Yeah, John.

10 MR. HERRICK: Yes, could you explain the 

11 national energy savings spreadsheet for standard 

12 rulemakings, what that consists of?

13 MR. BROOKMAN: Which slide are you on, 

14 John?

15 MR. HERRICK: Number 41.

16 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: Yeah, this one. 

17 Yes, that is -- should be rewritten. DOE uses a 

18 national impact analysis spreadsheet that is 

19 typically fairly similar for all the different 

20 products, and that’s what that comment is referring 

21 to. And so you can go to the DOE website to see 

22 examples of such spreadsheets.

23 MR. BROOKMAN: Adam.

24 MR. A. GOLDBERG: If I’m going to go 

25 searching for the spreadsheet, what do I search 
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1 for? Where do I find it?

2 MR. DOMMU: This is Jeremy. You could e3 mail me and I’ll be happy to provide you examples.

4 MR. BROOKMAN: Yes. John.

5 MR. HERRICK: John Herrick, again. But 

6 what does that spreadsheet -- does that -- what 

7 does it do?

8 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: It is the full 30 

9 year analysis, and so it’ll have a standards 

10 scenario and then it’ll have a base scenario, and 

11 it’ll include all the shipments inputs and things 

12 like that to that spreadsheet, and have all the 

13 costs, annualized costs, and savings, and so you’ll 

14 see the effect over three years.

15 MR. BROOKMAN: Neal.

16 MR. N. GOLDBERG: Is it Set-Top Box 

17 specific, or is this just your general spreadsheet?

18 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: This will be Set19 Top Box specific. It’s just that the format tends 

20 to be used for all the different rulemakings.

21 MR. BROOKMAN: Go ahead, John.

22 MR. HERRICK: Yes, I think a theme coming 

23 out of this meeting is, this isn’t just a garden 

24 variety type of product. It’s kind of unique, and 

25 I’m wondering, is there formulas in that 
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1 spreadsheet that are universal across all 

2 appliances and that may not be -- have a 

3 relationship to Set-Top Box.

4 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: So these 

5 spreadsheets are built from scratch, there’s no 

6 template that’s -- you know, we’re just putting 

7 things in. But all I’m saying is they tend to 

8 follow a similar format in terms of presenting the 

9 results and doing this sort of 30 year aggregate 

10 analysis. But it will be built specifically for 

11 Set-Top Boxes.

12 MR. BROOKMAN: Tom -- excuse me. You’re 

13 first.

14 MR. ECKMAN: Again -- oh.

15 MS. SANFORD: Jen Sanford with Cisco. A 

16 question about whether a use of the Set-Top Box 

17 might be -- would be taken into account in this at 

18 all. For example, certain Set-Top Boxes are being 

19 used to manage energy in the home, which could 

20 lower greenhouse gas emissions. Is that taken into 

21 account or are we just looking at the life cycle 

22 cost and impacts of the device itself, but not how 

23 it’s used, per se?

24 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: Are you referring 

25 to like home energy management systems?
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1 MS. SANFORD: Correct, yeah. Set-Top 

2 Boxes are starting to be used in such a way in the 

3 home by the consumer.

4 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: My guess is that 

5 would have to be addressed specifically in that 

6 product class. If there is an appreciable market 

7 share for such Set-Top Boxes, that will have to be 

8 addressed in that product class only. I’m not sure 

9 how we would address.

10 MR. DOMMU: I would -- this is Jeremy. I 

11 would certainly suggest that you provide 

12 information or comment on if we should create a 

13 specific product class for Set-Top Boxes that also 

14 integrate energy management systems in the home.

15 MS. SANFORD: Okay. Thank you.

16 MR. BROOKMAN: We reference the comment 

17 box 41. Tom Eckman.

18 MR. ECKMAN: As I recall from prior 

19 rulemakings, typically what you try and deal with 

20 here is one product cycle and track it through its 

21 full lifetime. So in the last year of the life of 

22 this product cycle, you extend those products 

23 entering that to the end of their lifetime, and 

24 then that’s the --

25 MR. BROOKMAN: With a decline rate.
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1 MR. ECKMAN: With a decline rate, and once 

2 they’ve left, that’s the end of the analysis, 

3 because you’re looking at the impact of this 

4 particular rulemaking. So that might be ten years 

5 to 14 or 15 years, as opposed to 30. But that’s 

6 more likely -- I think that’s been the analytical 

7 framework, that it’s one product cycle.

8 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. For those of you 

9 that are looking ahead to slide 89, the many 

10 chevrons that you see at the bottom of that slide, 

11 life cycle, manufacturer impact, utility impact, 

12 employment impact, emissions analysis, monetization 

13 of emissions and regulatory impact analysis -- we 

14 can go through these rather rapidly, so don’t be 

15 discouraged. We’re nearing the end here, right.

16 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: We are, yes.

17 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. So press on.

18 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: So again, so the 

19 life cycle cost and the national impact analysis --

20 those are the two main analysis outputs and the 

21 national energy savings and the national net 

22 present value are two key metrics that are used as 

23 part of those -- those seven factors that Jeremy 

24 described in the very beginning, the seven factors 

25 that the Secretary must consider. 
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1 Downstream Analyses

2 These at the bottom here are generally 

3 referred to as the downstream analyses and they 

4 attempt to look at impacts of very specific 

5 subgroups or to assess very specific effects from 

6 potential energy conservation standards. 

7 The life cycle subgroup analysis is an 

8 analysis on subgroups of consumers and these are 

9 subgroups that may be disproportionately affected 

10 by a potential energy conservation standard as 

11 compared with the general user population. So 

12 examples of such subgroups may include low income 

13 households or seniors. The methodology is 

14 basically to extend the LCC analysis but just to 

15 vary the initial inputs and make them more 

16 representative of these subgroups.

17 Then there’s the manufacturing impact 

18 analysis. This is an analysis that assesses the 

19 impacts of potential energy conservation standard 

20 on manufacturers. And if you recall from the very 

21 beginning, this is one of the key factors that must 

22 be considered as part of any energy conservation 

23 standard.

24 PARTICIPANT: You need an acronym.

25 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: Yeah. It will also 
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1 consider impacts on any manufacturer subgroups that 

2 may be disproportionately affected. It also 

3 examines the impact of cumulative regulatory 

4 burden. DOE typically uses a model to analyze 

5 industry cash flow and net present value, and this 

6 model is known as the government regulatory impact 

7 model. And there’s also, as we’ve discussed 

8 earlier, manufacturer interviews that are used to 

9 refine and push this model, and to assess any 

10 qualitative or other issues that are important to 

11 manufacturers.

12 And the main outputs here are industry net 

13 present value, impacts, subgroup impacts, and 

14 direct employment impacts, where direct employment 

15 here refers to employment impacts at manufacturers 

16 directly affected by energy conservation standards.

17 The utility impact analysis assesses the 

18 impact on utilities as a result of potential energy 

19 conservation standards. DOE typically uses a model 

20 known as the national energy modeling system, which 

21 is developed by the Energy Information 

22 Administration, and DOE uses a slightly tweaked 

23 version known as NEMS-BT, which allows it to 

24 analyze and generate forecasts that deviate from 

25 the annual energy outlook reference case. And this 
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1 allows DOE to assess the impact on utility and 

2 their forecast electricity generation and avoid a 

3 capacity as a result of new standards.

4 There’s also an employment impact 

5 analysis, and this assesses the overall impact on 

6 national employment as a result of energy 

7 conservation standards. Includes both direct and 

8 indirect, and as I just mentioned, the direct 

9 employment impact is assessed as part of the 

10 manufacturing impact analysis. Indirect impacts 

11 includes two main effects. One is the substitution 

12 effect. If the cost of a device is going up, then a 

13 consumer’s overall household expenses may be 

14 shifting from different goods and services. That 

15 may result in some indirect employment impacts, 

16 that’s considered. And there’s also an overall 

17 income effect, if, over the life cycle of the 

18 devices the consumer is saving money, then they’re 

19 income level is changing and that effect is 

20 analyzed. DOE typically uses this model known as 

21 the impact of sector energy’s model to model the 

22 evaluation of indirect employment impacts.

23 The emission analysis looks at the 

24 environmental impacts of potential standards, and 

25 in particular the emissions of several key gases. 
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1 DOE uses outputs from the utility impact analysis 

2 in the same model, the NEMS-BT model, and these are 

3 the primary emissions that are analyzed. So there 

4 are CO2 emissions, mercury emissions, nitrogen 

5 oxide emissions. And in certain states there is 

6 existing legislation for nitrogen oxide emissions 

7 in some states as well as sulfur dioxide, and at 

8 this time DOE does not -- DOE assumes that any 

9 impact from new energy conservation standards from 

10 those emissions are zero because of existing 

11 legislation and caps. So the primary focus here is 

12 on carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide in those 

13 states that are not covered.

14 This is a -- this will be a full fuel 

15 cycle analysis, and the emissions analysis here 

16 will also include a monetization of these 

17 emissions. The monetization values are based on an 

18 interagency review process that has been ongoing 

19 for several years now, and it includes a panel of 

20 technical experts and participants from many 

21 different agencies. It reviews the current, most 

22 up to date technical and scientific literature to 

23 obtain the best values that are associated with 

24 emissions of these gases. DOE recognizes that 

25 there’s considerable uncertainty and so the 
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1 monetization values -- there’s a range of 

2 monetization values that are used as part of this 

3 analysis.

4 MR. BROOKMAN: John.

5 MR. HERRICK: Does DOE consider this the 

6 compliance with the NEPA, the National 

7 Environmental Policy Act compliance? This is the 

8 analysis for that particular regulatory scheme?

9 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: Do you know the 

10 answer to that?

11 MS. SHER: I don’t. I don’t know the 

12 answer to that.

13 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you, Celia. Okay. 

14 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: And then finally, 

15 there’s a regulatory impact analysis. This is to 

16 investigate the impacts of any non-regulatory 

17 alternatives to reducing energy, and improving 

18 energy efficiency. And so examples of such non19 regulatory alternatives include rebates, tax 

20 credits, voluntary efficiency targets, any kind of 

21 early replacement or bulk procurement. The 

22 methodology is just to revise the national impact 

23 analysis spreadsheet and to change the inputs. And 

24 the output is, again, the national energy savings, 

25 and the net present value of all these non-
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1 regulatory alternatives.

2 And so, at this time, DOE welcomes 

3 feedback on any of these downstream analyses.

4 MR. BROOKMAN: Any comments on the 

5 downstream analyses? With no comments, now is 

6 another time when any individual that wishes to do 

7 so can make closing remarks, raise any additional 

8 issues that you think have not been vetted 

9 sufficiently appropriate with this stage of the 

10 meeting process. Any closing final remarks? 

11 Nothing additional at this time? Then back to 

12 Jeremy Dommu.

13 MR. DOMMU: I would just make one point 

14 that the goal here is to model as accurately as 

15 possible what the impacts of a potential energy 

16 conservation standard would be, both on energy 

17 consumption, and on the economy. So as we went 

18 through, I think it was very helpful for us to hear 

19 impacts that a standard could potentially have so 

20 we could include it in the model. So the more --

21 again, the more information you provide us on what 

22 potential impacts could be, the more we could 

23 include it in our model so as accurately as 

24 possible we could analyze what those impacts would 

25 be as we consider conservation standards. So I 
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1 appreciate all of the input that we’ve had at 

2 today’s meeting, and I welcome you to continue to 

3 provide the written comments in this comment period 

4 in response to the RFI, provide us the data that 

5 we’re requesting, and we are available to answer 

6 any questions that you may have. So thank you all 

7 very much.

8 MR. BENOIT-DESROCHES: There’s that slide 

9 there.

10 MR. DOMMU: Yes. And here is the 

11 information to provide us that feedback.

12 MR. BROOKMAN: So for my part, I thank you 

13 all. We had a very productive meeting, really 

14 covered a lot of ground, and you all are both smart 

15 and patient, appreciate that. I’ve handed out the 

16 evaluation form, and thanks for coming and now this 

17 meeting is officially adjourned.

18 (Whereupon, at 3:30 p.m., the meeting in 

19 the above captioned matter was adjourned.) 

20

21

22

23

24

25
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REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the attached proceedings 

before:

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

In the Matter of:

FRAMEWORK PUBLIC MEETING ON

SET-TOP BOXES AND NETWORK EQUIPMENT

Were held as herein appears and that this is the 

original transcript thereof for the file of the 

Department, Commission, Board, Administrative Law 

Judge or the Agency.

Further, I am neither counsel for or related to 

any party to the above proceedings.

 Official Reporter

Wendy Greene 

Dated: February 1, 2012