On the impact of 2G and 3G network usage for mobile phones' battery life

Over the last years mobile phones had a remarkable evolution. From a simple device for voice communication, it became a full blown multimedia device with multiple features and appealing services. In parallel with the introduction of novel services, mobile devices became more and more energy-hungry reducing the operational time for the user. To extend the battery life of mobile phones is one of the top priorities for mobile phones' manufacturers. This paper presents results of power and energy consumption measurements conducted on mobile phones for 2G and 3G networks. The services under investigation were text messaging, voice and data. The paper reports larger energy consumption in 3G networks for text messaging and voice services than energy consumption in 2G networks. On the other side the 3G networks become more energy friendly when large volumes of data have to be downloaded. The results imply that mobile phones should switch the network in dependency of the service used to save the maximum amount of energy. As this handover consumes energy, we include its analysis in our measurements.