Cache Less for More: Exploiting Cooperative Video Caching and Delivery in D2D Communications

The ever-increasing demand for videos on mobile devices poses a significant challenge to existing cellular network infrastructures. To cope with the challenge, we propose a user-centric video transmission mechanism based on device-to-device communications that allows mobile users to cache and share videos between each other, in a cooperative manner. The proposed solution jointly considers users’ similarity in accessing videos, users’ sharing willingness, users’ location distribution, and users’ quality of experience (QoE) requirements, in order to achieve a QoE-guaranteed video streaming service in a cellular network. Specifically, a service set consisting of several service providers and mobile users, is dynamically configured to provide timely service according to the probability of successful service. Numerical results show that when the number of providers and demanded videos is 40 and 2, respectively, the improved users experience rate in the proposed solution is approximately 85%, and the data offload rate on base station(s) is about 78%.