Cooperative Content Download-and-Share: Motivating D2D in Cellular Networks

Device-to-device (D2D) communications is regarded as a promising technology for future cellular networks, which can significantly improve both the network spectral efficiency and individual user experience. However, the lack of motivation to utilize the D2D links hinders the deployment of D2D communications in cellular networks. We study the cooperative downloading problem via D2D communications, and propose a scheme, termed as cooperative content download-and-share (CoCoDaS), to stimulate the demand of D2D communications by a simple pricing model in cellular networks, in order to offload traffic burden from base station. In CoCoDaS, the users with the same content demand cooperatively download a large-sized file from the base station (BS) and share their downloaded segments of such content with each other via D2D communications. Simulations verify the efficiency of our proposed CoCoDaS scheme in terms of the reduction of the BS's burden on data services and the utilization of D2D communications.