Energy-efficient overlay networks for mobile devices with buffered relaying and push notifications

The performance gap between mobile phones and computers shrinks with advancing mobile phone technology. Powerful mobile devices with fast networking are capable of participating in overlay networks. However, a challenge is the limited power capacity of mobile devices, as networking is one of the most battery-draining functionality of mobile phones, yet essential for the participation in an overlay network. Thus, this paper proposes an energy-efficient relay mechanism. A buffered relaying mechanism with push notifications allows mobile phones to remain longer in the sleep mode. The evaluation confirms a reduction of the energy consumption. While only 6% of energy can be saved in WiFi, up to 28% less battery is consumed in a 3G cellular network. These insights are used for the prototypical implementation of a distributed file synchronization client on Android.