Why do we continue to rely on smartphones despite the inefficiencies of wireless internet?

This article explains how wireless internet technology works, its inefficiencies, and how it affects devices like smartphones. It also provides an outlook on the present and future of wireless internet through the evolution of 3G and LTE technologies, and explores how future technological advances could improve power consumption and reliability.

 

We are now in an era where the internet is available anywhere, anytime. Computer scientists have worked hard to get us to this point. Smartphones, laptops, and even car navigation systems utilize wireless internet. There are many technological innovations behind the ubiquity of wireless internet. For example, as devices shrink in size and battery life improves, users no longer need to carry heavy equipment, and a wide variety of services and applications have emerged, dramatically expanding the reach of wireless internet. However, we don’t know much about how this wireless Internet is applied. In this blog post, I’ll try to explain this.
These internet-enabled devices connect to the internet without even trying. Smartphone users assume that when their device notifies them that a message has arrived, either by vibration or voice, that they have received it and are connected to the internet. However, devices that actually use the internet don’t wait passively. Instead, they connect to the internet at set times to deliver messages to you in real time so that you can always receive them. Thanks to this method of connectivity, users can send and receive information in real time, anywhere, anytime. This is an example of how important instant communication and rapid information sharing is in the modern world. The amount of time a smartphone is connected to the internet while out of contact is very long and meaningless compared to the amount of time you actually use it. While it is necessary to stay connected for long periods of time, this inefficient behavior is the main cause of smartphone power consumption.
So, before we explain why this connection is necessary, let’s think about the sequence in which wireless internet works. The terminal, the device that ultimately uses the internet, always broadcasts a set frequency to the closest access point (AP) to its location. The tower checks to see if the signal is good. The tower then starts communicating with the device. The message contains an identification number and authorization to connect to the tower. In most countries, many smartphones are connected to 3G, as it is the most commonly used cellular network. Once the tower is successfully connected, the smartphone sends several messages to the tower and waits for a reply. During this process, users can receive a variety of services specific to their location, such as location-based advertising or local information. This shows that a simple internet connection goes beyond simple data transfer and affects many aspects of life. At this point, if you have messenger applications like WhatsApp, TikTok, or Zalo installed on your smartphone, each time you access them, they will check to see if there are any new messages. If there are new messages, the application will switch from the regular reception setting to silent reception mode and wait for the messages to arrive normally. Of course, we also set a time out in case the connection is not good, in which case we’ll notify you that the message failed. If you compose and send a message yourself, it will be sent to the tower with the destination and message content.
In this section, we’ll look at what happens with photos and long messages. Sending more than 1 Mbyte of data at once, such as a photo, is nearly impossible and would exceed the amount of data (packets) that can be sent at once. The terminal or AP industry has established such protocols (rules) in advance to determine the amount or structure of packets that can be sent at a time. Therefore, if you send a large file such as a photo, the contents will be divided into the amount that the packet can hold at once and sent in order. Similarly, let’s say you’re trying to send a photo on WhatsApp, TikTok, or Zalo and it fails. You might have a good internet connection and you can see the message being sent, but sometimes it fails. Wireless internet is very unreliable, so if all of the split packets don’t arrive, this is considered a failure. If the transmission of one packet fails, the destination sends a request to the device to resend the split packet again, but the server side can also set a time out as mentioned above, so if it is not completed after the specified time, it is considered a failure and the reception is stopped.
This is an unreliable, power-hungry, and inefficient form of wireless internet, and there is no known replacement for this system. However, we do need to look at ways to make the systems we currently use more efficient. For example, by developing new algorithms that use less energy, or by researching technologies that can reduce transmission errors, we can overcome the limitations of wireless internet. Also, wireless internet services are already so widespread that it will take time for new systems to find their place. However, engineers have succeeded in evolving the current methods and implementing LTE transmission. LTE is the fourth generation of wireless transmission technology, and it’s often referred to as 3G or 4G to indicate that it’s the current generation. However, due to the different transmission methods, it’s technically difficult to build a smartphone with both 3G and 4G, and for marketing reasons, the current paradigm is to offer only one or the other. Of course, LTE is seen as a speed improvement over 3G. This speed boost has allowed users to send and receive more data faster, which has enabled real-time content consumption, such as streaming services. With these advancements, it’s expected that technology will one day improve reliability and reduce power consumption. The evolution of wireless internet is an important enabler for us to live in a more connected world. We’re excited to see what the future holds for the technology.