Research Report RR-14-297, Eurecom, December 2014 / Also published on ArXiv, 02 March 2015
The rapid increase in data traffic demand has overloaded existing cellular
networks. Planned upgrades in the communication architecture (e.g. LTE),
while helpful, are not expected to suffice to keep up with demand. As a result,
extensive densification through small cells, caching content closer to or
even at the device, and device-to-device (D2D) communications are seen as
necessary components for future heterogeneous cellular networks to withstand
the data crunch. Nevertheless, these options imply new CAPEX and
OPEX costs, extensive backhaul support, contract plan incentives for D2D,
and a number of interesting tradeoffs arise for the operator. In this paper, we
propose an analytical model to explore how much local storage and communication
through "edge" nodes could help offload traffic in various heterogeneous
network (HetNet) setups and levels of user tolerance to delays. We
then use this model to optimize the storage allocation and access mode of
different contents as a tradeoff between user satisfaction and cost to the operator.
Finally, we validate our findings through realistic simulations and show
that considerable amounts of traffic can be offloaded even under moderate
densification levels.
Type:
Report
Date:
2014-12-02
Department:
Communication systems
Eurecom Ref:
4477
Copyright:
© EURECOM. Personal use of this material is permitted. The definitive version of this paper was published in Research Report RR-14-297, Eurecom, December 2014 / Also published on ArXiv, 02 March 2015 and is available at :
