ACM Springer Mobile Networks and Applications (MONET) Journal Special Issue on Future Internet for Green and Pervasive Media

Excerpt

Over the last two decades, mobile services rapidly grew from being an accessory service to becoming an essential part of day to day life, the colloquial saying that “one would never leave home without the house keys” is now the same for the mobile phone. This is reflected in the market penetration of mobile subscriptions over the last decades. Starting in 1991 when the first mobile phone call was made in Finland over the Global System of Mobile Communications (GSM), today we have reached over 4 billion mobile subscriptions, which is more than half of the world population. In comparison, there are only around 1.3 billion fixed line subscribers worldwide. Moreover, according to analytical estimation, the global subscriptions will reach 6 billion in 2014 and is estimated to achieve 100% global penetration by 2015, meaning that the number of subscriptions will almost match the world population. With this increase in the number of subscriptions and traffic, the energy and cost of mobile communications will increase as well. Mobile networks are already suffering high energy and financial costs. The energy bill accounts for a large portion of the operational expenditure (OPEX) of mobile telecom providers, and equals 1% of the monthly subscription income of mobile networks. …