Proactive small cell networks

Proactive scheduling in mobile networks is known as a way of using network resources efficiently. In this work, we investigate proactive Small Cell Networks (SCNs) from a caching perspective. We first assume that these small base stations are deployed with high capacity storage units but have limited capacity backhaul links. We then describe the model and define a Quality of Experience (QoE) metric in order to satisfy a given file request. The optimization problem is formulated in order to maximize this QoE metric for all requests under the capacity constraints. We solve this problem by introducing an algorithm, called PropCaching (proactive popularity caching), which relies on the popularity statistics of the requested files. Since not all requested files can be cached due to storage constraints, the algorithm selects the files with the highest popularities until the total storage capacity is achieved. Consecutively, the proposed caching algorithm is compared with random caching. Given caching and sufficient capacity of the wireless links, numerical results illustrate that the number of satisfied requests increases. Moreover, we show that PropCaching performs better than random caching in most cases. For example, for R = 192 number of requests and a storage ratio γ = 0.25 (storage capacity over sum of length of all requested files), the satisfaction in PropCaching is 85% higher than random caching and the backhaul usage is reduced by 10%.