Content delivery in wireless wide area networks

An apparatus configured to employ an iterative process to select an edge-server set, comprising:

• a metrics manager configured to collect network topology information from at least one of a digi-node field and a client field, and to distribute data signals to the edge-server set for at least one of storage and delivery to client devices;
• and
• a parent server configured to:
• construct a trellis having a number of states at least equal to a number of edge servers in the edge server set, wherein each state comprises a plurality of nodes, each node corresponding to one of a plurality of candidate edge servers;
• employ a trellis-exploration algorithm to select the edge-server set, comprising providing interconnects between each node of a first state to each of a plurality of nodes in a next state, and for each node in a state, selecting a path corresponding to a best performance metric that connects to a node in a previous state, wherein the best performance metric comprises a benefit minus a cost for serving the client devices;
• and
• schedule data transmissions from the edge-server set to deliver the data signals to the client devices.

An apparatus configured for selecting an edge-server set, comprising:

• a metrics manager configured to collect network topology information from at least one of a digi-node field and a client field, and to distribute data signals to the edge-server set for at least one of storage and delivery to client devices;
• and
• a parent server configured to:
• construct a trellis having a number of states at least equal to a number of edge servers in the edge-server set, wherein each state comprises a plurality of nodes, each node corresponding to one of a plurality of candidate edge servers;
• calculate a fitness function based on network performance and cost corresponding to each candidate edge server and the network topology information;
• and
• employ a trellis-exploration algorithm to select the edge-server set by identifying a path through the trellis having optimal path metrics derived from the fitness function, comprising providing interconnects between each node of a first state to each of a plurality of nodes in a next state, and for each node in a state, selecting a path corresponding to a best path metric that connects to a node in a previous state, wherein the best path metric comprises the fitness function.