MobiCache: Cellular traffic offloading leveraging cooperative caching in mobile social networks

Offloading cellular traffic through mobile social networks has arisen as a promising way for relieving cellular networks. Prior studies mainly focused on caching data in a number of pre-selected helpers. However, such a strategy would fail when mobile users enter and leave the target area over time. In this paper, we examine the research decisions and design tradeoffs that arise when offloading cellular traffic in such a dynamic area of interest, referred to as a MobiArea, and we design an offloading framework, MobiCache, for maximizing cellular operators' revenues and minimizing the overhead imposed on mobile devices. On the user side, we propose a content floating-based cooperative caching strategy that caches data in geographical floating circles, instead of selected helpers in previous studies, to cope with the dynamics. A geographical routing scheme is designed for delivering data and queries towards floating circles. We also develop a cache replacement scheme to improve caching cost-effectiveness inside floating circles. On the operator side, query history and feedback are maintained for cellular operators to optimize framework parameters that maximize their revenues. Extensive trace-driven simulations show that, compared with a state-of-the-art scheme, MobiCache offloads up to 52% more traffic with 15% shorter delay and 6% less forwarding cost.