Cool-SHARE: Offload Smartphone Data by Sharing

With the volume of mobile data traffic almost doubling each year, the mobile data offloading challenge has become ever relevant. This paper takes on a practical approach to offload the cellular network. A solution called Cool-SHARE is proposed and implemented on Android. It is an app for seamlessly sharing apps over short-range links with limited cellular control and can be extended for multimedia data sharing. Two types of sharing scenarios are defined, i.e., social sharing and opportunistic sharing. The challenges of sharing are identified and analysed. The discovery, connection, and data transfer delays are measured and analysed on a Samsung Galaxy S III using Bluetooth and Wi-Fi Direct. The challenges including seamless discovery and connection, authenticity and payment are solved. Furthermore, suggestions for reducing delays of the low-level Wi-Fi Direct implementation are proposed.