Offloading mobile data from cellular networks through peer-to-peer WiFi communication: A subscribe-and-send architecture

Currently cellular networks do not have sufficient capacity to accommodate the exponential growth of mobile data requirements. Data can be delivered between mobile terminals through peer-to-peer WiFi communications (e.g. WiFi direct), but contacts between mobile terminals are frequently disrupted because of the user mobility. In this paper, we propose a Sub-scribe-and-Send architecture and an opportunistic forwarding protocol for it called HPRO. Under Subscribe-and-Send, a user subscribes contents on the Content Service Provider (CSP) but does not download the subscribed contents. Some users who have these contents deliver them to the subscribers through WiFi opportunistic peer-to-peer communications. Numerical simulations provide a robust evaluation of the forwarding performance and the traffic offloading performance of Subscribe-and-Send and HPRO.