Pricing, Caching Selection, and Content Delivery in Wireless Networks: A Hierarchical Approach

Caching content at the edge of the network is a promising way to improve content delivery efficiency. In most existed research, content caching strategies are typically designed to maximize local hit rates, improve energy efficiency or reduce network cost. However, this metric cannot guarantee the utility of content providers (CPs). To encounter with this challenge, we construct a hierarchical content distribution problem, within this which, two layers are included called caching selection and content delivery, respectively. The former layer intends to find content caching places, i.e. service providers(SPs) for contents while guaranteeing CP's utility, and the latter layer utilizes multi-seller multi-buyer multi- content trading auction (MMMTA) to characterize the competition between the SPs and users. To solve the proposed problem, a hierarchical content distribution iteration (HCDI) method is designed. Various simulation results show the property of the proposed scheme.