Finnish researchers target smartphone power consumption
While it’s well known that many developing countries are bypassing the setup of major wired telecom infrastructure and going straight to mobile networks, it’s less commonly known that a huge obstacle to using these wireless networks is a lack of access to the power grid by end users.
Researchers from Aalto University in Finland this week at the Africomm Conference 2011 in Zanzibar, Tanzania will discuss their work on a network proxy designed to reduce smartphone power consumption on 3G wireless networks by three-quarters, thus allowing mobile phone users in Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya more fruitful mobile phone experiences.The proxy device offloads the bulk of data transfer duties from the phone itself.
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“This new solution is particularly valuable in developing countries because it provides significantly more effective Internet access to a much larger number of people. At the moment, only a small percent can access the Internet from a wired connection, but 90 percent of the African population lives in areas with mobile phone network coverage. Mobile phone usage is increasing rapidly, however the use of mobile Internet services is hindered by users not having access to the power grid to recharge their phones”, says Professor Jukka Manner from Aalto University.
In addition to developing the network proxy, the researchers examined other ways to cut mobile phone power consumption, including mobile-optimized websites, HTTP compression and better data caching.
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