Energy efficient mobile relay service in future networks

Excessive energy consumption in nowadays wireless mobile devices inevitably leads to reduction of those devices operational time, which may jeopardize mobile traffic growth and limit user mobility. One of the possible ways to break the reduction in operational time of mobile devices is to utilize low-power short-range cooperative communication, as short-range cooperative communication offers data relaying between peer mobile devices. As we show in the paper, short-range cooperative data relaying may lead to significant energy saving gains spanning between 14% and 33%. However, still 3GPP has not standardized a way to exploit short-range technologies by introducing mobile relay services, and consequently mobile devices connected to 3GPP networks cannot benefit from the reduced energy consumption provided by the data relaying. Herein, we propose a solution where data exchange between a mobile device and a 3GPP network is performed via another mobile device, and is handled as an untrusted non-3GPP IP access standardized in Release 8. The proposed solution shall promote utilization of short-range technologies on a broader scale and thus, provisioning of energy efficient cooperative communications. Additionally, it shall create an opportunity for new business and pricing models based on short-range cooperative communication.