LTE phones are fast, but they can also suck a battery dry in a few hours.

Nokia Siemens Networks(s nok)(s si) did some preliminary studies on LTE
phones power drain versus their HSPA (3G) counterparts and found that LTE
devices consume from 5 percent to 20 percent more than previous-generation
phones, depending on the application used. Those numbers, however, seem
conservative compared to the anecdotal evidence. In its review of the
Samsung Galaxy Nexus(s goog), Engadget found that the Google Navigation
running over the LTE network ate battery power faster than the Nexus car
charger could restore it.
Why is LTE so greedy? For starters, the radio in your LTE device is doing a lot
more than it ever did in your old 3G handset. The radio is the single biggest
source of power drain in any device apart from the LED screen, but unlike the
display, the radio is always on. And LTE is particularly hungry. The next time
your new Galaxy Nexus or HTC Vivid conks out right after lunch, here are five
reasons why:
Your phone has rabbit ears. All LTE devices sold today use a
technology called MIMO, which doesnt just send or receive a single
signal, but rather multiple parallel transmissions. Todays devices
support two such paths future devices will support more which
means each phone has two antennas, each of which requires its own
power amplifier. Its not quite as bad as the running two phones off of a
single battery, but you get the idea.
Look at all those networks! Verizon Wireless(s vz)(s vod) and
MetroPCS(s pcs) 4G phones arent just maintaining two LTE links,
theyre running an additional radio to boot. Devices from these carriers
have to remain in constant contact with both the CDMA network to
receive phone calls and texts and the LTE network.

LTE devices are codependent. Your screen may be dark, but your phone is constantly
pining for the network. That means its periodically scans the airwaves
around it to determine which tower it should tether itself to. The more
networks there are to choose from the more scans it must make. With
the typical operator sporting some combination of GSM, HSPA, CDMA
and EV-DO systems often multiple version of each in different
frequency bands there are a lot of other networks for an LTE device
to flip between.

Is that a tower on the horizon? Operators havent built out their new
LTE footprints densely yet. With cells spaced much further apart,
devices have to reach further and thus boost their transmission power
to latch onto a tower. And since there are still plenty of coverage
holes in these networks, phones are dropping in and out of LTE
coverage quite often, initiating new rounds of scans and taxing the
battery further.
This aint no FM radio. There is a reason each generation of wireless
technology is faster and more efficient than its predecessors. RF
engineers are finding more and better ways to wrestle more bits into a
radio wave. But, the more complex the waveform, the more computing
power phone processors use up modulating and demodulating that
radio wave. The 64-state quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM)
and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) techniques used
in LTE are as complicated as they sound. Consequently, the faster and

more spectrally efficient networks become, the more power phones will
consume trying to make sense of their signals.
So are we doomed forever to a life of constantly reaching for our battery
chargers? On Monday, well explore what handset makers and network
suppliers are doing to improve LTE battery life, but also how they may be
fighting a losing battle.
Tesla coil image courtesy of Flickr user caseyyee