Taming user-generated content in mobile networks via Drop Zones

Abstract—Smartphones have changed the way people communicate. Most prominently, using commonplace mobile device features (e.g., high resolution cameras), they started producing and uploading large amounts of content that increases at an exponential pace. In the absence of viable technical solutions, some cellular network providers are considering to start charging special usage fees to address the problem. Our contributions are twofold. First, we find that the usergenerated content problem is a user-behavioral problem. By analyzing user mobility and data logs of close to 2 million users of a cellular network, we find that (i) users upload content from a small number of locations, typically corresponding to their home or work locations; (ii) because such locations are different for different users, we find that the problem appears ubiquitous, since user-generated content uploads grow exponentially at most locations. However, we also find that (iii) there exists a significant lag b...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2011
• Where: INFOCOM
• Authors: Ionut Trestian, Supranamaya Ranjan, Aleksandar Kuzmanovic, Antonio Nucci
• Keywords: Cellular Network, Communications, Drop Zones, INFOCOM 2011, Locations