A Survey of Idle State Optimizations to Improve Power Saving for M2M Communication over LTE Networks

M2M communication is quickly gaining popularity because of its endless possibilities. In order to take advantage of this new technology we need to use more advance networks like the 3GPP LTE/LTE-A which deliver higher throughput and can handle more active devices. LTE networks were mainly designed for H2H communication meaning that we cannot just use M2M devices over it without any optimization. LTE networks have a power saving mechanism known as Discontinuous Reception (DRX). M2M devices spend most of their time in the idle state therefore more optimization needs to be carried out in the idle state. In this paper, a survey of the available power saving mechanisms like reducing the RRC Inactivity timer, extending the DRX paging cycle and switching off the radio transceiver are studied and analyzed. Then a DRX configuration switching mechanism is proposed so as to save battery power but also ensure that delay (latency) is controlled at the same time. Further an algorithm has been proposed to be implemented at the eNB (base station) so as to assist it with the switching mechanism.