The age-old nightly activity of turning in to your favorite TV show has changed with the explosive popularity of IPTV, Internet Protocol Television. Today all you need is an internet connection, not enormous satellite dishes. Still, the environmental impact each of these technologies leaves behind counts just as much as their convenience. Some would wonder—between IPTV and satellite TV—how Mother Earth fares?
Imagine yourself in the countryside early in morning mist and damp conditions. You saw what? Satellite dishes like mushrooms in a forest scattered over rooftops. These are not merely passive elements. Little as they are, each of them represents the enormous infrastructure needed: rockets to launch satellites, ground station maintenance staff, and the actual manufacturing and disposal materials used. These acts affect carbon emissions. Building a satellite requires energy-intensive operations that, based on estimates, might spew between 50,000 and 100,000 kg of CO2 each launch.
On delivery, IPTV, on the other hand, depends on current internet infrastructure. Although this is more friendly to the heavens, it has problems of own ecosystem. Datasources. There is plenty of electricity consumed by the digital brains running IPTV. Farms of servers hum around-the-clock and call for strong cooling systems. Actually, data centers already account for roughly 1% of the worldwide demand for electricity.
Technological advances help to reduce these energy loads. Many times, IPTV companies source sustainable energy. Data center energy-efficient cooling technologies are increasingly standard. Not to add, as hardware gets leaner the bandwidth needed drops, allowing IPTV to walk more lightly.
Still, you wonder about electronic waste? Oh, that represents still another can of worms! Old satellite dishes and set-top boxes pile up, rotting as they wait to be responsibly disposed of. Given they are often eclipsed by future launches, satellite receivers could become outdated sooner. This helps to explain the e-waste conundrum. Although not totally guilt-free, IPTV sometimes provides a more simplified option.