WINA: A framework to conserve energy in mobile wireless communications

Mobile phones nowadays are equipped with multiradio interfaces which allow radio link connections to an array of wireless networks. The presence of these interfaces however, introduces serious concerns. These interfaces consume huge amounts of energy thus can quickly drain their batteries and reduce the length of usage of the mobile phones. In this paper, a new activation service is proposed to reduce the energy consumption in mobile phones. The basic idea behind this proposal is to introduce an auxiliary receiver that is able to receive a special signal from the access point and activate the wireless interfaces on the mobile phone. During idle times, the wireless interfaces are switched off to reduce its idle power - the energy a device consumes in `standby' state. When call or data arrives, the auxiliary receiver will receive notification from an access point and activate the relevant wireless interface on the mobile phone to receive the data or call. Through this activation service, we believe that power consumption can be reduced thus increase the longevity of mobile phone usage.