Cost-Aware Wireless Data Broadcasting

Abstract

Research on push systems has naturally focused on improving the client serving time. However, in many cases the determinant factor for choosing between push and pull logic is the low central infrastructure cost. Adaptive push systems take this condition to the next step, requiring the central calculation of optimal broadcast schedules every few seconds or minutes, performed by relatively inexpensive server hardware. Aiming at introducing cost-aware wireless broadcasting systems, the Fast Optimization - Memory Conserving (FOMC) method is presented. The goal of the proposed method is to reduce the required computational power and memory of the central server, to the point that it can be implemented with mainstream hardware, and be incorporated to minute-scale adaptive systems. In order to demonstrate the importance of taking cost into account, FOMC is compared with the classical and influential Broadcast Disks method. While FOMC succeeds in requiring reasonable computational power and minimal memory, the Broadcast Disks method is rendered merely unrealizable in practice. Finally, in a first effort to minimize the scanning time for optimal broadcasting parameters, their relation with the total number broadcasted data items is being studied through a specially adapted multivariate illustration technique, and it is observed to be non-linear.