Charging for web content pre-fetching in 3G networks

Abstract

Web pre-fetching is a technique that tries to improve the QoS perceived by a user when surfing the web. Previous studies show that the cost of an effective hit rate is quite high in terms of bandwidth. This may be the reason why pre-fetching has not been commonly deployed in web proxies. Nevertheless, the situation can change in the context of 3G, where the radio access is a shared scarce resource and the operator may find useful to exchange fixed-network bandwidth by perceived QoS for subscribed customers. Most importantly, in UMTS it is possible to charge for this service even though prefetching is provided by a third party. This paper studies this scenario, identifying the conditions where pre-fetching makes sense, describes the way OSA/Parlay could be used to enable charging, presents a tool developed for this purpose and analyses several issues related to charging for this service. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2004.