A First Look at 802.11n Power Consumption in Smartphones

The authors report the first measurement study of 802.11n power consumption in smartphones. Using a popular 802.11n-enabled Smartphone and an 802.11n wireless testbed, they evaluate the power and energy consumption on the phone for a variety of configurations including different MAC bitrates, frame sizes, and channel conditions. They contrast their results against recent studies using 802.11n wireless cards for desktop/laptop computers. Their findings have significant implications in the design of energy efficient rate adaptation algorithms for the next generation of 802.11n-enabled smartphones.