Will the operators be able to cut your Internet box remotely? This is in any case what affirms Guillaume Peltier, the executive vice-president of Reconquest!, the party founded by Eric Zemmour. According to him, Emmanuel Macron’s government, through the voice of “Mr. Guerini, a minister” offers this solution, to save energy and serve “ecological propaganda”.
It is actually false. First of all, Guillaume Peltier has the wrong minister. He is actually reacting to a video, an excerpt from a political interview posted on Twitter on Monday, October 10. Except that in this video, it is absolutely not Stanislas Guérini, the Minister of the Public Service, who speaks… but Jean-Noël Barrot, the Minister of the Digital Transition. As for the substance of what Guillaume Peltier says, to answer it, just listen to the entire excerpt posted on Twitter. We understand then that the Minister of Digital Transition does not mention at all the possibility for an operator to remotely turn off the box in your living room. He is actually talking about a feature that already exists on some boxes: “hibernation”.
Cut off of his internet box remotely by his operator: “this is the objective” declared @jnbarrotMinister for the digital transition on #Europe1 pic.twitter.com/xLKTVNcXka
— Europe 1 (@Europe1) October 10, 2022
This is an option that the user can choose to activate or not on your box. If you do, it automatically goes to sleep, either after a certain period of inactivity, or when it detects no device connected via wifi. And with this setting, it reactivates as soon as a new device connects. Another possibility: choose a time slot during which you are sure not to use your box (between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. for example) and configure it so that it turns off automatically during this period. It is therefore a good way to save energy, but you decide. The operator has no say.
This feature already exists, but only on certain boxes. The Minister of Digital Transition therefore asked that it be generalized to all devices. Jean-Noël Barrot therefore invited operators to build their new boxes with this feature, and to offer an update for those that have already been sold, to allow the user to choose to activate it .. Or not!