Femtocaching and device-to-device collaboration: A new architecture for wireless video distribution

We present a new architecture to handle the ongoing explosive increase in the demand for video content in wireless networks. It is based on distributed caching of the content in femtobasestations with small or non-existing backhaul capacity but with considerable storage space, called helper nodes. We also consider using the wireless terminals themselves as caching helpers, which can distribute video through device-to-device communications. This approach allows an improvement in the video throughput without deployment of any additional infrastructure. The new architecture can improve video throughput by one to two orders-of-magnitude.