Reducing power consumption of mobile thin client devices

The thin client computing paradigm shifts processing capabilities from the device to the network. Applications are executed on network servers and the terminal functionality is limited to capturing user input and rendering the display updates. Since the amount of processing by the terminal is reduced, thin clients are potentially energy efficient devices, making them highly appealing to mobile users. However, intensive network communication is required to convey user input and display updates between server and terminal. The increased power consumption of the device radio platform might undo or even exceed the savings achieved by the reduction in local processing. In this paper, two power-saving strategies for thin client are presented: adaptive content encoding and improved wireless link layer control algorithm. The strategies have been experimentally validated in three scenarios. This work was done in the scope of the European FP7 MobiThin project, focused on the adaption of wireless and mobile thin client computing.