NeTS: Small: Cooperative Networked Caching for Cost and Reward Management in Mobile Content Ecosystems

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This project develops a transformative mechanism for cooperative object caching in Social Wireless Networks (or SWNETs). The key idea is to reduce wireless bandwidth strain in carriers' 3G/4G networks by intelligently storing user objects within SWNETs formed across mobile devices through short range WiFi style wireless links. The applicable user objects would include phone Apps, mp3 music, video clips, news items, book chapters, and research papers. The key research objectives of the project is to develop a generalized caching framework for managing various forms of costs and rewards in today's Mobile Content Ecosystems (MCEs) comprising of the network operators, content providers, and the end-users. The research involves: 1) general formulation of cost-reward flow among the MCE stakeholders, 2) developing optimal distributed cooperative caching algorithms, 3) characterizing the impacts of network, user and object dynamics, 4) investigating the impacts, and developing mechanism for controlling non-cooperation in the ecosystems, and finally 5) developing a prototype Social Wireless Network for tracking human mobility in the context of cooperative network caching. Impacts of this research include a potential transformation of the area of object life-cycle management in Social Wireless Networks with an end-goal of network capacity and cost-revenue management in today's Mobile Content Ecosystems. This research can be considered as a key enabler for the emerging social network applications and how they can be symbiotically supported by the cellular and short range wireless network infrastructure.