Analysis of TCP's computational energy cost for mobile computing

In this paper we present results from a detailed measurement study of TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) running over a wireless link. Our primary goal was on obtaining a breakdown of the computational energy cost of TCP at the sender and receiver (excluding radio energy costs) as a first step in developing techniques to reduce this cost in actual systems. We analyzed the energy consumption of TCP in FreeBSD 4.2 and FreeBSD 5 running on a wireless laptop and Linux 2.4.7 running on a wireless HP iPAQ 3630 PocketPC. Our initial results showed that 60 - 70% of the energy cost (for transmission or reception) is accounted for by the Kernel – NIC (Network Interface Card) copy operation. Of the remainder, 15% is accounted for in the copy operation from user space to kernel space with the remaining 15% being accounted for by TCP processing costs. We then further analyzed the TCP processing cost and determined the cost of computing checksums accounts for 20 – 30% of TCP processing cost. ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2003
• Where: SIGMETRICS
• Authors: Bokyung Wang, Suresh Singh
• Keywords: Computational Energy Cost, Energy Cost, SIGMETRICS 2003, Tcp Processing Cost