AN INCENTIVE FRAMEWORK FOR CELLULAR TRAFFIC OFFLOADING

Abstract

Cellular networks (e.g., 4G) are currently facing severe traffic overload problems caused by
excessive traffic demands. Offloading part of the cellular traffic through other forms of networks, such as Delay
Tolerant Networks (DTNs) and WiFi hotspots, is a promising solution. However, since these networks can only
provide intermittent connectivity to mobile users, utilizing them for cellular traffic offloading may result in a
non-negligible delay. As the delay increases, the users’ satisfaction decreases. In this paper, we investigate the
tradeoff between the amount of traffic being offloaded and the users’ satisfaction. We provide a novel incentive
framework to motivate users to leverage their delay tolerance for cellular traffic offloading. To minimize the
incentive cost given an offloading target, users with high delay tolerance and large offloading potential should
be prioritized for traffic offloading. To effectively capture the dynamic characteristics of users’ delay tolerance,
our incentive framework is based on reverse auction to let users proactively express their delay tolerance by
submitting bids. We further illustrate how to predict the offloading potential of the users by using stochastic
analysis for both DTN and WiFi cases. Extensive trace-driven simulations verify the efficiency of our
incentive framework for cellular traffic offloading.