The article assesses the electricity consumption in use of telecommunication equipment to achieve one remote multi-user work meeting, an existing service proposed by Orange group. It also examines the electric gains of substitution for a meeting requiring physical transport. Equipment comprises participant computers PC and phones, access to core networks and servers to permit audio link and the share of documents on PC display between users. Each device requires power to perform hours of activity or transfer nominal bit's of throughput. A generic and modular method is suggested to determine from this information, which is not directly related to services processed by the devices, the consumption of the service under study. The method thus provides a quantitative relation of service consumption to its characteristics - duration, number of users and access throughput - but also to device consumption efficiency and utilization rate. The relation of dependance permits to assess potential energy saving by substituting devices for more efficiency ones and/or by increasing their utilization rate at same provided service. With some utilization rates at around 10%, as observed for the servers, a telemeeting between three users and lasting 2.3 h requires 9 MJ of electricity. Using better equipment and higher rates it can be decreased to 1.5 MJ. By comparison transport of two of the users by train over a total distance of 2500 km requires 500 MJ. The method can be applied to any service provided its characteristics are known. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.