Joint Caching and Pricing Strategies for Information Centric Networks

We evaluate joint caching and pricing strategies among access networks, transit networks and content providers in an Information Centric Network (ICN). Specifically, we develop game theoretic models to study the interaction between the caching and pricing strategies among the above entities in the ICN. We first study static Nash strategies under various conditions and observe that the ICNs always choose 0-1 (all or nothing) caching strategies depending on the relative caching costs and prices at the transit ICN. We then use the insights gained to design dynamic pricing and caching strategies using a repeated game formulation. Using a model where the cost of caching changes as a function of the state of the cache, we study joint caching and pricing strategies for the access networks, transit networks and content providers, when the caching costs change linearly as well as exponentially.