Power Saving in Wireless Multimedia Streaming to Mobile Devices

Abstract

Wireless networks are becoming a part of everyday life for many people. When a mobile device has wireless LAN capability, multimedia content can be streamed over a wireless network to that device. However, a major disadvantage of all mobile devices is their limited battery lifetime. Multimedia streaming puts extra pressure on the battery, causing it to discharge faster. In some cases, streaming tasks cannot be completed purely because the battery of the device becomes fully discharged, which causes significant user dissatisfaction. This chapter describes adaptive buffer power save mechanism (AB-PSM), a novel power saving wireless communication solution that enables an increase in battery lifetime during mobile multimedia streaming.