Modeling and analysis of content caching in wireless small cell networks

Abstract

Network densification with small cell base stations is a promising solution to satisfy future data traffic demands. However, increasing small cell base station density alone does not ensure better users' quality-of-experience and incurs high operational expenditures. Therefore, content caching on different network elements has been proposed as a mean of offloading the backhaul by caching strategic contents at the network edge, thereby reducing latency. In this paper, we investigate cache-enabled small cells in which we model and characterize the outage probability, defined as the probability of not satisfying users' requests over a given coverage area. We analytically derive a closed form expression of the outage probability as a function of signal-to-interference ratio, cache size, small cell base station density and threshold distance. By assuming the distribution of base stations as a Poisson point process, we derive the probability of finding a specific content within a threshold distance and the optimal small cell base station density that achieves a given target cache hit probability. Furthermore, simulation results are performed to validate the analytical model.