With the understanding of why both a host and RF radio are required in wireless systems, lets take a look at the overall system power utilization. To save power, both the Host and WLAN device need to be optimized. One way of saving power is by lowering the host frequency. However, this will also lower the speed and data throughput. Another trick is to place the host in sleep mode while the WLAN chipset checks for beacons, as shown here with blue lines. The WLAN chipset itself can sleep between these beacons to save additional power. When a new beacon arrives it can wake to check for available traffic, staying in active power mode for only a short amount of time. When traffic is available, it can then wake up the host to receive or transmit information.