Joint cooperative control mechanism for cache and bandwidth sharing and pricing strategies

Mobile video streaming serves as a cornerstone for advanced 5G applications and is projected to account for over 75% of global mobile data traffic. To meet the evolving streaming demands of future networks, network slicing has emerged as a critical technology. In this work, we introduce a novel network slicing protocol specifically designed for video streaming delivery. Here, service providers partition both bandwidth capacity and caching space and coordinate the allocation of these heterogeneous resources to enhance the service quality. To capture the dynamic interactions between service providers and various devices, we develop resource sharing and pricing algorithms; they are operated in tandem to reconcile conflicting requirements. Utilizing weighted utilitarian bargaining ideas, the resource-sharing algorithm attains a balanced compromise in the resource-sharing dilemma between bandwidth and cache. By applying a modified game theoretic framework, the pricing algorithm derives price strategies for both bandwidth and cache resources. Our cohesive and interactive control mechanism efficiently manages both caching and bandwidth resources while ensuring a balanced trade-off among competing objectives. It effectively leverages slicing technology to optimize overall system performance and can secure mutual benefits. Finally, simulation results confirm the efficiency and effectiveness of our joint approach, and analytical comparisons reveal that our proposed solution outperforms existing bandwidth-cache slicing protocols.