Optimal Popularity-based Transmission Range Selection for D2D-supported Content Delivery
Loreto Pescosolido, Andrea Passarella, Marco Conti
TL;DR
The paper addresses energy efficiency in D2D-enabled content delivery for 5G+ networks by proposing a cross-layer optimization that tunes the maximum D2D transmission range according to content class popularity, delay tolerance, and time-varying demand. It provides an analytical model for non-delay-tolerant traffic and validates it with simulations, reporting energy savings of approximately 30-55% over a uniform-range approach, especially under heterogeneous traffic. The work demonstrates that selective, class-aware range control can substantially reduce infrastructure energy use and offers a practical basis for offline planning and real-time optimization in edge networks. Overall, the study highlights the significance of content-class aware D2D range adaptation as a key lever for energy-efficient next-generation networks.
Abstract
Considering device-to-device (D2D) wireless links as a virtual extension of 5G (and beyond) cellular networks to deliver popular contents has been proposed as an interesting approach to reduce energy consumption, congestion, and bandwidth usage at the network edge. In the scenario of multiple users in a region independently requesting some popular content, there is a major potential for energy consumption reduction exploiting D2D communications. In this scenario, we consider the problem of selecting the maximum allowed transmission range (or equivalently the maximum transmit power) for the D2D links that support the content delivery process. We show that, for a given maximum allowed D2D energy consumption, a considerable reduction of the cellular infrastructure energy consumption can be achieved by selecting the maximum D2D transmission range as a function of content class parameters such as popularity and delay-tolerance, compared to a uniform selection across different content classes. Specifically, we provide an analytical model that can be used to estimate the energy consumption (for small delay tolerance) and thus to set the optimal transmission range. We validate the model via simulations and study the energy gain that our approach allows to obtain. Our results show that the proposed approach to the maximum D2D transmission range selection allows a reduction of the overall energy consumption in the range of 30% to 55%, compared to a selection of the maximum D2D transmission range oblivious to popularity and delay tolerance.