Streaming over 3G and LTE: How to Save Smartphone Energy in Radio Access Network-Friendly Way

Energy consumption of mobile devices is a great concern and streaming applications are among the most power hun-gry ones. We evaluate the energy saving potential of shaping streaming traffic into bursts before transmitting it over 3G and LTE networks to smartphones. The idea is that in be-tween the bursts, the phone has sufficient time to switch from the high-power active state to low-power states. We investigate the impact of the network parameters, namely inactivity timers and discontinuous reception, on the achiev-able energy savings and on the radio access network signal-ing load. The results confirm that traffic shaping is an ef-fective way to save energy, even up to 60 % of energy saved when streaming music over LTE. However, we note large differences in the signaling load. LTE with discontinuous re-ception and long inactivity timer value achieves the energy savings with no extra signaling load, whereas non-standard Fast Dormancy in 3G can multiply the signaling traffic by a factor of ten