EdgeMart: A Sustainable Networked OTT Economy on the Wireless Edge for Saving Multimedia IP Bandwidth

Abstract

With the advent of 5G+ services, it has become increasingly convenient for mobile users to enjoy high quality multimedia content from CDN driven streaming and catch-up TV services (Netflix, iPlayer) in the (post-)COVID over-the-top (OTT) content rush. To relieve ISP owned fixed-line networks from CDN streamed multimedia traffic, system ideas (e.g., Wi-Stitch in [45]) have been proposed to (a) leverage 5G services and enable consumers to share cached multimedia content at the edge, and (b) consequently, and more importantly, reduce IP traffic at the core network. Unfortunately, given that contemporary multimedia content might be a monetised asset, these ideas do not take this important fact into account for shared content. We present EdgeMart - a content provider federated, and computationally sustainable networked (graphical) market economy for paid-sharing of cached licensed (OTT) content with autonomous users of a wireless edge network (WEN). EdgeMart is a unique oligopoly multimedia market (economy) that comprises competing networked sub-markets of non-cooperative content sellers/buyers - each sub-market consisting of a single buyer connected (networked) to only a subset of sellers. We prove that for any WEN-supported supply-demand topology, a pure strategy EdgeMart equilibrium exists that is (a) nearly efficient (in a microeconomic sense) indicating economy sustainability, (b) robust to edge user entry/exit, and (c) can be reached in poly-time (indicating computational sustainability). In addition, we experimentally show that for physical WENs of varying densities, a rationally selfish EdgeMart economy induces similar orders of multimedia IP traffic savings when compared to the ideal (relatively less practical), altruistic, and non-monetized “economy” implemented atop the recently introduced Wi-Stitch WEN-based content trading architecture. Moreover, the EdgeMart concept helps envision a regulated edge economy of opportunistic (pay per licensed file) client services for commercial OTT platforms.