Prefetching architecture for hot-spotted networks

High-speed wireless access networks have been studied for future mobile networking. In wireless links, the higher the transmission rate, the smaller its cell size becomes. As a result, a lot of discontinuous spotted areas will exist at many places in cities. In such an environment, a mobile host moving with high-speed like a car will go through cells during a very short time. Therefore, it will repeat discontinuous connection with the network, and will not be able to have enough time for communication. We present a prefetch architecture referred as to proactive data transfer for supporting these networks. In this architecture, a user utilizes a cellular network for file requests while she stays outside the area of the hot-spotted network. The requested files are prefetched at a spool server located in the hot-spotted network. Proactive data transfer enables a user to start high-speed data communication as soon as she enters into the area of high-speed wireless networks. Moreover, throughput deterioration caused by congestion of backbone networks can be alleviated. The experimental results show the effectiveness of proactive data transfer