Distributed Cooperative Caching in Social Wireless Networks

This paper introduces cooperative caching policies for minimizing electronic content provisioning cost in Social Wireless Networks (SWNET). SWNETs are formed by mobile devices, such as data enabled phones, electronic book readers etc., sharing common interests in electronic content, and physically gathering together in public places. Electronic object caching in such SWNETs are shown to be able to reduce the content provisioning cost which depends heavily on the service and pricing dependences among various stakeholders including content providers (CP), network service providers, and End Consumers (EC). Drawing motivation from Amazon's Kindle electronic book delivery business, this paper develops practical network, service, and pricing models which are then used for creating two object caching strategies for minimizing content provisioning costs in networks with homogenous and heterogeneous object demands. The paper constructs analytical and simulation models for analyzing the proposed caching strategies in the presence of selfish users that deviate from network-wide cost-optimal policies. It also reports results from an Android phone-based prototype SWNET, validating the presented analytical and simulation results.