Re: New iPhone's Battery is Achilles' Heel ==> telecom contributing to climate change?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Andrew C Burnette <acb () acb net>
Date: July 6, 2009 9:58:13 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net, Bob Frankston <Bob19-0501 () bobf frankston com>
Subject: Re: [IP] Re:   New iPhone's Battery is Achilles' Heel ==>  
telecom contributing to climate change?

Dave, et al,

For IP if you so wish :-)

it's an AT&T problem, or more precisely, "choice of 2g/3g" problem. I'll
be the CDMA or 4G only iphone could be embarrassingly different.

Big diff that seems confusing to the (u.s.a. only) cdma world is that
2G, 2+G and 3G in the GSM domain are different radios (GSM, GPRS, and
UMTS(w-cdma)/EDGE (evolved-gsm) respectively), and thus, each consumes
some finite amount of power and cpu/dsp time. in CDMA, 3G (EVDO) is
simply another 1.25Mhz CDMA channel, dedicated to data use. essentially,
same radio, same access algorithms, etc, thus no real difference or
addition in power consumption when quiescent. (all are relatively bad at
handling IP/packet based data efficiently)

As to 4G, yes will robinson, there is a significant decrease in the
amount of power used, despite the higher data rates. base
stations/controllers/sectors are down to 2watts per sector (90 or 120
degrees of coverage) from just shy of 10W for 3G and grossly more for
2g. Handset power gets lower, primarily due to CMOS production size
shrink, and a much better DSP to pull apart the multiple signals prior
to an ultra low power fft in the device. battery life increases a good
bit, but this also allows handset manufacturers to spend power
elsewhere, or to add features.

(some additional factors include 4G's technological timing allowing for
placement of the amplifiers right on the back of antennae rather than
100M away from a hut; thus SNR and standing wave problems are squashed
effectively). Combined with better bookkeeping of handsets allows for
longer sleep times between beacons and requests to the network.

WiMAX looks more ietf derived, and LTE sticks with 3gpp principles. Both
tend to be more power efficient, WiMAX likely to have a slight advantage
early on. (longer control cycles, and less overhead for packet data)

As for WiFi, I'm surprised at how efficient it actually is. the original
goals weren't low power, and most dual band handsets tend to consume
more power with wifi enabled. Particularly if that wifi zone is busy.

Cheers,
Andy Burnette

David Farber wrote:
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> *From: *"Bob Frankston" <Bob19-0501 () bobf frankston com
> <mailto:Bob19-0501 () bobf frankston com>>
> *Date: *July 3, 2009 1:34:59 PM EDT
> *To: *<dave () farber net <mailto:dave () farber net>>, "'ip'"
> <ip () v2 listbox com <mailto:ip () v2 listbox com>>
> *Cc: *"'Lauren Weinstein'" <lauren () vortex com <mailto:lauren () vortex com 
> >>
> *Subject: **RE: [IP] New iPhone's Battery is Achilles' Heel ==>  
> telecom
> contributing to climate change?*
>
> Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that 3G uses so much power. Is it
> because you must contact a faraway base station rather than simply  
> using
> the nearest access point – and cities they are typically very near? Is
> the protocol itself power hungry? Are 4G or WiMax any better? How much
> of the energy usage is due to the complexity of cellular
> protocols—supposedly 2G is lower usage than 3G? I’d be interested in
> numbers from those who have done the analysis.
>
> If you multiple this by a hundreds of millions of phones and another
> billion devices such medical monitoring devices then we have a huge
> unnecessary energy footprint in order to give each entity its own
> billable path rather than allowing more efficient sharing of bit  
> paths.
> Same with “broadband”.
>
> Simply using the nearest Wi-Fi access point makes a lot more sense.  
> But
> we still need to do work – I don’t think that 802.11 puts much  
> emphasis
> on managing power levels (does it?).
>
> Just as important are the post-ICANN protocols
> <http://frankston.com/?name=IPICANNDNSAlternative> to address
> the problems <http://frankston.com/?name=DNSFailed> with today’s
> protocols which are dependent upon those (billable) paths and on the  
> DNS
> for faux stability.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net]
> Sent: Friday, July 03, 2009 12:58
> To: ip
> Subject: [IP] New iPhone's Battery is Achilles' Heel
>
> This battery problem has nothing to do with the new iPhone. The old
> iPhone had basically the same problem. If you leave the phone in 3G
> mode power consumption is quite heavy. If you leave the phone in
> non-3G mode but with WiFi and Bluetooth enabled, I find on either
> generation phone I can go most of the day and not go below 60%  
> battery.
>
> I have always berated Apple for stealing the battery on general
> principles. But if anything I find the new iPhone 3GS to be better on
> the battery again as long as you keep it out of 3G mode unless you
> need it.
>
> Dave
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com <mailto:lauren () vortex com>>
> Date: July 3, 2009 12:15:54 PM EDT
> To: dave () farber net <mailto:dave () farber net>
> Subject: New iPhone's Battery is Achilles' Heel
>
>
>
>                     New iPhone's Battery is Achilles' Heel
>
>                  http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000591.html
>
>
> Greetings.  Before you even think about rushing out to buy the new
> iPhone, you might want to read an interesting story about continuing
> negative reactions to the iPhone 3GS' battery life
> ( http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-iphone3-2009jul03,0,2546606.story
>  ).
>
> Of course, all smartphones are power hungry, and we use these
> Internet-enabled phones for so much more than just talking.  But the
> iPhone is a particularly egregious case since the battery is sealed
> inside and not considered to be a "user replaceable" item.
>
> My G1 phone also sucks a lot of juice, but I can pop in an extra
> charged battery anytime, and I have an extended duration battery
> (bigger is better!) to use in there as well.
>
> With the iPhone, since battery life sucks, you're really stuck.
>
> There are, however, some comparatively ugly workarounds.  One person
> responding just now to a tweet of mine on this topic says that he uses
> a solar charger.  I guess that's OK if you don't leave the iPhone
> itself out in direct sun, and don't keep smashing your head into the
> solar array (OK, so the solar array isn't really that big ...)
>
> A more practical way to deal with the problem may be something like
> this external battery pack
> ( http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2767656 --  
> only
> $20 on sale -- 50% discount -- at Radio Shack through July 11).  You
> can always duct tape it to your iPhone.  Won't that be pretty?
>
> More generally, the whole concept of sealed-in batteries in Apple
> devices strikes me as the epitome of "those suckers will buy anything
> with our name on it -- boot to the head!" consumer relations.
>
> But hey, whatever turns you on.
>
> --Lauren--
> Lauren Weinstein
> lauren () vortex com <mailto:lauren () vortex com>
> Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
> http://www.pfir.org/lauren
> Co-Founder, PFIR
>   - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
> Co-Founder, NNSquad
>   - Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
> Founder, GCTIP - Global Coalition
>   for Transparent Internet Performance - http://www.gctip.org
> Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
> Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
> Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
> Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
>
>
>
>
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