BitTorrent on mobile phones - energy efficiency of a distributed proxy solution

Abstract

Using proxy servers to cache and shape network traffic can significantly improve the energy efficiency of the participating clients. Introducing a proxy-based solution has a dual implication to the energy consumption. First, how much battery can we save in the mobile device? Second, how do proxies influence the electricity consumption on the infrastructure side? In this paper our focus is on file-sharing. We use the BitTorrent protocol on the proxy servers to download and push content to mobile devices in an energy efficient way. In addition to the obvious solution where a single proxy is hosted on a central server, we study cases where consumers host a distributed proxy on several home computing devices such as routers and desktop computers.