Is your wireless router turned on 24/7 ?
This weekend I stayed at a friend's house and was intrigued to notice that she turns her router on when she turns on her laptop, and turns it off again when she's done. It surprised me because it has never occurred to me to turn off my router, even when I go away. So I tweeted a brief enquiry to find out what other people do. I also emailed my provider, Plus Net, to ask for their advice on the matter. Here are some of the answers I received:
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steveellwood
@suethomas I turn my IT gear off every night since I got one of these http://is.gd/3ais
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myrlueck
24/7. partly for iphone use: I wake up in the middle of the night and read news/look something up.
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deirdre
it's always on, we never woulda thought different at my place. is that evil, or just a little decadent ;) ?
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I switch it off every night
And Plus Net wrote: "Switching your router off overnight shouldn't have a detrimental affect on your Broadband connection. but I would advise not to power it between sessions, as this can be seen by the exchange as an intermittent connection, and this can slow the connection speed." I wasn't entirely sure what 'between sessions' meant so asked for clarification, and they replied: "'Not to power it between sessions' basically means not turning the router on and off multiple times in one day. If you prefer not to leave the router on 24/7 and like to turn it on every day, i would suggest turning the router on in the morning (or whenever you first use it) and turn it off at night."
As for me, I do keep mine on 24/7 and it doubles as a nursery for ailing houseplants, which seem to enjoy an energising boost of wireless emissions ;) But should I turn it off?
So... can anyone contribute more information about this? Should routers be turned off to save power? If so, when? And would that affect their functioning, as Plus Net seems to indicate that it might?
And am I right in my rather tongue-in-cheek assumption that houseplants like to be close to the family router?
Since I have learned a lot about Geopathic Stress after suffering badly for the last five years, I turn off all electrical equipment at night. I also use a Raditech Vitaliser to off set the electromagnetics and it works very well.
Mary Heap
Posted by: Mary Heap | July 01, 2009 at 09:41 PM
i never switch mine off. i have problem were is will lose my configuration.
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Posted by: cell phone plan | March 22, 2009 at 06:44 PM
Everything comes off 2 switches (12 plugs), switched off when sleeping and out.
Posted by: Tony Hall | October 25, 2008 at 01:35 PM
I leave it on, as it's underneath my desk and would need me to crawl in and out to do so...
I guess I should turn it off as even standby does waste power.....
I challenge Ms Thomas to move her router to a cold & drafty spot in her room and see if it still nurtures her plants..instead of the warm and cosy, tucked away corner it is usually in!! forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think these things may be related!
Posted by: carolyn | October 13, 2008 at 10:30 PM
Sue,
Couldn't remember the name of it at the time, but it is called the BT Fon network. Anyone who is a BT Broadband customer can sign up and it causes their Home Hub to broadcast as a BT Openzone hotspot at the same time as broadcasting your private wireless network. It never affects your broadband performance as it only utilises bandwidth you aren't using and it allows any BT Openzone customer to connect to the hotspot in exactly the same way they would connect to a public hotspot. Your network and the hotspot operate completely independant of each other and there is no risk to security or ways of telling that you are connected via a home hub rather than public one.
The idea is to vastly expand the coverage of Wi-Fi hotspots around the world using home broadband connections.
More information can be found at http://www.btfon.com/
Posted by: Mark Glover | October 13, 2008 at 05:38 PM
the discussion continues:
Three reasons to turn off routers when not in use.
1/ the longer your router is on, then the greater the chance a malicious user has to break your security (BTW, you do have WPA security enabled??)
Yes, however there are so many people who leave their wireless open on purpose that this is getting less and less likley. I spoke to someone with two routers recently, one open and one encrypted. One was left open for altruistic/commons reasons.
2/ routers consume electricity - I don't leave any electrical equipment on standby any more.
Yes. I even turn my sky box off. It reduced our yearly bills by a third. More beer money. A bit more time before we kill the planet.
3/ there is some concern as to the safety of having a very local wireless transmitter (and the same concerns apply to cordless phones). It's not my area, but there doesn't seem to be much hard evidence either way as yet. There is some reading at http://www.es-uk.info/. However, better safe than sorry, as my gran used to say...
I have to disagree on you with this one. There is no evidence whatsoever for ill health caused by wireless routers. There is, however, plenty of evidence for their safety. Here's a good link regarding medical quackery on the subject. http://www.badscience.net
Cheers
Neal
Posted by: Sue Thomas | October 13, 2008 at 02:22 PM
From Clinton Ingrams and Steve McRobb via the IOCT list at DMU:
Just to add a little to what Clinton had to say (all very sensible, by the way)...
Clinton Ingrams wrote:
Hi
Three reasons to turn off routers when not in use.
1/ the longer your router is on, then the greater the chance a malicious user has to break your security (BTW, you do have WPA security enabled??)
2/ routers consume electricity - I don't leave any electrical equipment on standby any more.
3/ there is some concern as to the safety of having a very local wireless transmitter (and the same concerns apply to cordless phones). It's not my area, but there doesn't seem to be much hard evidence either way as yet. There is some reading at http://www.es-uk.info/. However, better safe than sorry, as my gran used to say...
Wireless routers sold for the home are actually multi-function devices - they are routers, hubs and wireless access points (WAP), plus some other functionality. If the WAP feature is not needed by you, then it should be turned off, unless you are being generous to your neighbours :)
If you are not disabling wireless access, you can restrict it to known computers. Most wireless routers allow you to limit connections to a list of trusted MAC addresses - for the ethernet cards in each computer you want to be able to connect. So you could, if you wanted, be generous to some neighbours and not others...
--
regards from
Steve McRobb
Posted by: Sue Thomas | October 13, 2008 at 11:09 AM
Yes, I turn it off at night in the belief that the powerful radio signal interferes with my sleep patterns- I have worse dreams and broken sleep with it on. I sleep beautifully in a Cornish valley that has zero wifi/mobile signals.
Posted by: Martin RE | October 13, 2008 at 09:48 AM
In all day: on first thing in the morning, off last thing at night;
In and out: on first thing, off if out or not using for more than 2-3 hours.
That's not a plan, it's what I tend to do with two things: a cable modem and an ethernet router.
Also, I never turn off my two computers (PowerBook and iMac) since they power down automatically and I hate waiting for startup. I copied a tweak for the unix maintenance scripts to work around 11am Sundays (they can't work overnight if powered down and I don't want them cutting in when I'm busy in the week).
My first freelance work was in the area of environmental initiatives for business, so I tend not to leave anything on longer than needed and would be selling electricity back to the grid if I could afford the initial setup!
There, that's more information than anyone needed :-)
Posted by: Dave Everitt | October 13, 2008 at 08:27 AM
I leave mine on, partly because there are so many devices that use it around here, with my son's computer and xbox 360 and various mobile devices that I feel I need it, partly because it's open so people passing can check their emails. Feel less guilty about that than about the food I recently wasted leaving my fridge door open...
Posted by: Bill Thompson | October 13, 2008 at 07:07 AM
Mark, can you explain a bit more about what it means to be part of BT's Openzone network? Thanks.
Posted by: Sue Thomas | October 13, 2008 at 06:39 AM
Sue,
I'm with the majority here as mine stays on 24/7. I've been away from home since Friday morning and I never even thought about switching it off. Mind you, mine is a BT Home Hub and is part of BT's user based extended Openzone network, so it makes sense to leave it on for that.
Mark
Posted by: Mark Glover | October 13, 2008 at 12:37 AM
I switch mine on and off. I treat it like my TV or MP3 player, or room lights.
Posted by: Ann Kaloski | October 12, 2008 at 10:27 PM
Yes, I power-down the space shuttle every evening when I go to bed and when I go out to work in the morning. It is a carbon thing, and an electricity thing. Turn those little stand-by lights off! How hard can it be? @jamesclay my fridge has food that spoils; my in box is not going to rot if I turn off the router. It takes all of 45 seconds to come back on. On an ADSL wired (and any other I suspect) BB connection it makes not the slightest whit of a difference to your connection speed.
Posted by: George | October 12, 2008 at 10:26 PM