Queuing Theoretic Models for Multicast and Coded-Caching in Downlink Wireless Systems

Abstract: We consider a server connected to $L$ users over a shared finite capacity link. Each user is equipped with a cache. File requests at the users are generated as independent Poisson processes according to a popularity profile from a library of $M$ files. The server has access to all the files in the library. Users can store parts of the files or full files from the library in their local caches. The server should send missing parts of the files requested by the users. The server attempts to fulfill the pending requests with minimal transmissions exploiting multicasting and coding opportunities among the pending requests. We study the performance of this system in terms of queuing delays for the naive multicasting and several coded multicasting schemes proposed in the literature. We also provide approximate expressions for the mean queuing delay for these models and establish their effectiveness with simulations.