A Low-Complexity Approach to Distributed Cooperative Caching with Geographic Constraints

A promising means to increase efficiency of cellular networks compared to existing architectures is to proactively cache data in the base stations. The idea is to store part of the data at the wireless edge and use the backhaul only to refresh the stored data. Data replacement will depend on the users' demand distribution over time. As this distribution is varying slowly, the stored data can be refreshed at off-peak times. In this way, caches containing popular content serve as helpers to the overall system and decrease the maximum backhaul load [1-5]. Our goal in this paper is on developing low-complexity distributed and asynchronous content placement algorithms. This is of practical relevance in cellular networks in which an operator wants to optimize the stored content in caches (i.e., base stations) while keeping the communication in the network to a minimum. In that case it will help that caches exchange information only locally.