Traffic backfilling: subsidizing lunch for delay-tolerant applications in UMTS networks

Mobile application developers pay little attention to the interactions between applications and the cellular network carrying their traffic. This results in waste of device energy and network signaling resources. We place part of the blame on mobile OSes: they do not expose adequate interfaces through which applications can interact with the network. We propose traffic backfilling, a technique in which delay-tolerant traffic is opportunistically transmitted by the OS using resources left over by the naturally occurring bursts caused by interactive traffic. Backfilling presents a simple interface with two classes of traffic, and grants the OS and network large flexibility to maximize the use of network resources and reduce device energy consumption. Using device traces and network data from a major US carrier, we demonstrate a large opportunity for traffic backfilling.