Blockchain Storage, Computation Offloading, and User Association for Heterogeneous Cellular Networks

To support more Internet-of-Things devices, we present a novel blockchain-enabled heterogeneous cellular network (HetNet). In this network, devices store block data to the cloud service provider, offload the proof-of-work mining tasks to base stations (BSs), and associate with the macrocell BS or small-cell BSs. Then, we analyze the user association problem, computation offloading problem, and block storage problem in the blockchain-enabled HetNet. We also design corresponding algorithms to solve these problems. Furthermore, to tackle the challenge of data congestion of BSs, based on the obtained computation offloading and block storage strategies, we propose a modified user association algorithm. The analysis shows that the proposed blockchain-enabled HetNet can effectively attain computing offloading, block storage, and user association strategies, and more devices can access the blockchain network. Analytical results show that the proposed modified user association algorithm can greatly avoid data congestion of BSs. Numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed algorithms for computation offloading and block storage, and the proposed modified user association algorithm has a significantly great advantage compared with the traditional nearest BS association algorithm in terms of avoiding data congestion.