Modeling energy efficiency in wireless internet communication

For wireless mobile Internet users the length of the battery life is one of the most important performance factors. The energy efficiency of the data transmission over radio is a key component affecting the battery lifetime. This paper investigates WLAN energy consumption in network communication on a Mobile handset. We introduce an energy model that allows analysis and simulation of the energy efficiency of the Internet protocols on a Wireless Network Interface, and have extended the NS-2 simulation platform to allow investigating the energy consumption of the Radio Modem and the Power Amplifier in WLAN 802.11g network interface of a mobile device. We have also validated our model against measurements on real wireless hardware, and show that the simulation results closely match the real world behavior. We claim to present more detailed and accurate model of the WLAN energy consumption than what is done by the past work that allows designing and optimizing future Internet protocols towards more energy efficient behavior.