Cooperative content caching and distribution in dense networks

Abstract

Mobile applications and social networks tend to enhance the need for high-quality content access. To address the rapid growing demand for data services in mobile networks, it is necessary to develop efficient content caching and distribution techniques, aiming at significantly reduction of redundant content transmission and thus improve content delivery efficiency. In this article, we develop optimal cooperative content cache and distribution policy, where a geographical cluster model is designed for content retrieval across the collaborative small cell base stations (SBSs) and replacement of cache framework. Furthermore, we divide the SBS storage space into two equal parts: the first is local, the other is global content cache. We propose an algorithm to minimize the content caching delay, transmission cost and backhaul bottleneck at the edge of networks. Simulation results indicates that the proposed neighbor SBSs cooperative caching scheme brings a substantial improvement regarding content availability and cache storage capacity at the edge of networks in comparison with the current conventional cache placement approaches.