Edge Computing vs Centralized Cloud: Impact of Communication Latency on the Energy Consumption of LTE Terminal Nodes

Edge computing brings several advantages, such as reduced latency, increased bandwidth, and improved locality of traffic. One aspect that is not sufficiently understood is the impact of the different communication latency experienced in the edge-cloud continuum on the energy consumption of clients. We studied how a request-response communication scheme is influenced by different placements of the server, when communication is based on LTE. Results show that by accurately selecting the operational parameters a significant amount of energy can be saved.