Temporal Coverage Based Content Distribution in Heterogeneous Smart Device Networks

The present work studies content distribution in heterogeneous smart device networks, in which all smart-phones/tablets can communicate through proximity channels such as Bluetooth/NFC/Wi-Fi Direct when they are in proximity, but only some devices have the cellular data communication capability. In the context of recent applications of content distribution in smart device networks such as mobile offloading and enterprise network defense prioritization, we propose a temporal coverage based scheme that exploits nodes' encounter regularity and content's delivery delay tolerance to reduce content delivery costs. Using kernel-density estimation (KDE) on the readily available proximity encounter records, we propose a network structural property, T-covering set, and a corresponding localized algorithm that distributedly elects a T-covering set from the underlying network. Using real Bluetooth encounter traces, we demonstrate that temporal coverage based content distribution using T-covering set can significantly reduce content delivery cost with minimal delay and no sacrifice in coverage.