Efforts to reduce energy consumption by mobile networks have focused so far on shutting down components or processes temporarily when not in use for data transmission. With diminishing returns there after efforts within the standards by 3GPP, as well as by hardware vendors, attention has now turned to optimizing efficiency during transmission, rather than running at the ambient power rating. Qualcomm has dived in with techniques that complement shutdown at idle times by reducing power consumed during transmissions. The company has focused on two aspects, the network power amplifiers (PAs) and spectral efficiency. We have covered these developments before in Wireless Watch, but now the chip giant is providing more detail of how these approaches work. To represent higher spectral…