System and method for delivering video data from a server in a wireless network by caching the video data

In a wireless network comprising a wireless carrier core network (CN), and a radio access network (RAN), a method for delivering video data from a server in a CDN, the method comprising:

• determining video preferences of active users of a cell and for all active users for a plurality of cells connected to the CN;
• caching the video data at a higher level CN cache in the CN, and lower level caches in one or more RAN caches at one or more base station nodes at an edge of the RAN, according to a hierarchical hybrid and partially distributed caching policy that is based on the determined video preferences;
• receiving a request for video data;
• if the cached video data in an accessible RAN cache includes the requested video data, serving the cached video data from the RAN cache;
• if the cached video data in the accessible RAN cache does not include the requested video data, but the cached video data in the CN cache includes the requested video data, serving the cached video data from the CN cache;
• wherein the caching policy comprises, for caching at a respective one of the one or more RAN caches, determining a popularity probability that each respective video in the RAN cache will be requested by the active users of the cell based on the determined video preferences;
• wherein said determining video preferences comprises determining a cell site user preference profile for active users of the cell;
• and
• wherein the caching policy comprises:
• determining a most likely requested (MLR) set of videos and a least likely requested (LLR) set of videos from among the videos in the RAN cache and at least one additional video to potentially be added to the RAN cache;
• determining an LLR subset of videos from the LLR set of videos having a lowest request probability that is necessary to be evicted from the RAN cache to fit a new video from the MLR set of videos that is to be added to the RAN cache;
• and
• if a request probability for the LLR subset of videos is lower than the request probability for the new video from the MLR set of videos by a threshold, updating the cache.