Markov Decision Process Based Content Dissemination in Hybrid Wireless Networks

There has been an explosion in mobile data traffic, but cellular networks alone could not support the fast growing demand on data transmission. This dilemma is caused mainly by the reason that the same content is repeatedly transmitted in the network, since many people are interested in the same content. Broadcast networks, however, could alleviate this problem by delivering popular content to multiple clients simultaneously. This paper presents a content dissemination system combining broadcast network with cellular network. Based on the model of Markov Decision Process, we propose an online optimal scheme to maximize the expected number of clients receiving content. The clients' interest and queuing length at broadcast and cellular base stations are two important elements that are considered in our scheme. Simulation results demonstrate that, compared with random scheme and single network scheme, our scheme performs the best in terms of lowering packet loss rate at base stations and enhancing the average number of clients who receive their interested content.