So am I understanding this correctly.. reducing power means potentially a lower speed?
Nearly. Reducing the transmission power has that effect, yes. But the DSLAM uses electrical power for a lot more - all the DSPs will still consume just as much power while doing the signal processing.
Don't expect much of a reduction in the overall power consumption, in kWh, maybe 10%
But, as pointed out elsewhere, it doesn't look like transmit power has actually reduced. If that were the case, speeds would have dropped ... and they haven't.
I'm wondering if this power changing situation as anything to do with preparing G.fast, as I remember one of the issues was supplying power to the G.fast box.
By changing power settings to lines going directly to the cabinet, they might have more power available from the cabinet to the pole for G.fast?
Haha. No, it won't be anything to do with g.fast.
Yes, there is a problem in cost getting power at a g.fast site. It just costs too much to put a new feed in. If they go for a solution where they send power from the FTTC site, it'll be voltage down spare pairs from a separate battery bank, likely fed from the existing supply.
The issue then will be having enough spare pairs, but there won't be an issue with how many amps can be sucked out of the existing supply line - 100A (24kW) on metered supply lines, 25A (6kW) on unmetered supply lines. Almost all FTTC cabinets currently consume less than 0.5kW. You probably need all 288 lines in a full-size Huawei to even reach that.
Power is a scarce commodity until you've paid (handsomely) for a feed. Then you have an abundance.
