Responsive Content-Centric Delivery in Large Urban Communication Networks: A LinkNYC Use-Case

Large urban communication networks such as smart cities are an ecosystem of devices and services cooperating to address multiple issues that greatly benefit end users, cities, and the environment. LinkNYC is a first-of-its-kind urban communications network aiming to replace all payphones in the five boroughs of New York City (NYC) with kiosk-like structures providing free public Wi-Fi. We consolidate these networks with standalone edge cloud devices known as cloudlets and introduce geographically distributed content delivery cloudlets (CDCs) to store popular Internet content closer to end users; essential in environments with diverse and dynamic content interests. A content-centric and delivery framework is proposed leveraging NYC’s population densities and CDCs for interest-based in-network caching. Analysis shows that although the adoption of multiple CDCs dramatically improves overall network performance, advanced caching policies are needed when considering increased content heterogeneity. Thus, we propose popularity-driven and cooperation-based caching policies at individual CDCs to account for user and content dynamics over time. The amalgamation of urban population densities, multiple CDC placements and smarter caching techniques helps exploit the ultimate benefits of a content-centric urban communications network and dramatically improves overall network performance and responsiveness. Our proposed solutions are validated using LinkNYC as a use-case.