802.11ad in Smartphones: Energy Efficiency, Spatial Reuse, and Impact on Applications

We present an extensive experimental evaluation of the performance and power consumption of the 60 GHz IEEE 802.11ad technology on commercial smartphones. We also compare 802.11ad against its main competitors in the 5 GHz band - 802.11ac and, for first time, 802.11ax, on mobile devices. Our performance comparison focuses on two aspects that have not been extensively studied before: (i) dense multi-client and multi-AP topologies and (ii) popular mobile applications under realistic mobility patterns. Our power consumption study covers both non-communicating and communicating modes. We also present the first study of the power saving mode in 802.11ad-enabled smartphones and its impact on performance. Our results show that 802.11ad is better able to address the needs of emerging bandwidth-intensive applications in smartphones than its 5 GHz counterparts. At the same time, we identify several key research directions towards realizing its full potential.