Abstract
In the present trend of having an explosive use of smartphones and IoT-based devices, there is an exponential growth in mobile data. It has already caused an overburden of mobile data traffic across the network service providers. The cellular networks face an enormous challenge in predicting the need of upcoming technologies specifically the mobile data offloading solutions. Their limitations to evolve all of a sudden restrict the network administrators and collaborators to offer a compromised but promising solution to cater the mobile data requirements. In this paper, we study the evolutionary trend in data offloading solutions since its evolution. We classify the available literature into different types of offloading solutions on the basis of their major contributions, i.e., data offloading delay permissions, decision makers in offloading solutions, types of networks used for offloading and the major infrastructure requirements for offering offloading. Besides, we present the timeline analysis of the mobile data offloading strategies by discussing their pros and cons for their application in real network scenarios. Towards the end, we highlight the major research issues and challenges to showcase the upcoming need of feasible contribution of research community.

Similar content being viewed by others
Data Availability
Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.
References
Ackerman E, Ben-Zwi O, Wolfovitz G (2010) Combinatorial model and bounds for target set selection. Theoret Comput Sci 411(44–46):4017–4022
Agamy A, Mohamed AM (2021) Impact of offloading on the efficiency of wireless access networks. Int J Wireless Inform Netw 28(9):134–146
Ahmed W, Rasool A, Javed AR, Kumar N, Gadekallu TR, Jalil Z, Kryvinska N (2021) Security in next generation mobile payment systems: a comprehensive survey. IEEE Access 9:115932–115950
Aijaz A, Aghvami H, Amani M (2013) A survey on mobile data offloading: technical and business perspectives. IEEE Wirel Commun 20(2):104–112
Anagnostopoulos A, Kumar R, Mahdian M (2008) Influence and correlation in social networks. In Proceedings of the 14th ACM SIGKDD international conference on Knowledge discovery and data mining, pp. 7–15
Andreev S, Pyattaev A, Johnsson K, Galinina O, Koucheryavy Y (2014) Cellular traffic offloading onto network-assisted device-to-device connections. IEEE Commun Mag 52(4):20–31
Baier P, Dürr F, Rothermel K (2012) TOMP: Opportunistic traffic offloading using movement predictions. In 37th Annual IEEE Conference on Local Computer Networks. IEEE, pp. 50–58
Barbera MV, Viana AC, de Amorim MD, Stefa J (2014) Data offloading in social mobile networks through VIP delegation. Ad Hoc Netw 19:92–110
Beckman R, Channakeshava K, Huang F, Vullikanti VA, Marathe A, Marathe MV, Pei G (2010) Implications of dynamic spectrum access on the efficiency of primary wireless market. In 2010 IEEE Symposium on New Frontiers in Dynamic Spectrum (DySPAN). IEEE, pp. 1–12
Ben-Zwi O, Hermelin D, Lokshtanov D, Newman I (2009) An exact almost optimal algorithm for target set selection in social networks. In Proceedings of the 10th ACM conference on Electronic commerce, pp. 355–362
Carpaneto G, Toth P (1980) Algorithm 548: solution of the assignment problem [H]. ACM Trans Math Softw (TOMS) 6(1):104–111
Chaintreau A, Hui P, Crowcroft J, Diot C, Gass R, Scott J (2007) Impact of human mobility on opportunistic forwarding algorithms. IEEE Trans Mob Comput 6(6):606–620
Charikar M, Naamad Y, Wirth A (2016) On approximating target set selection. In Approximation, Randomization, and Combinatorial Optimization. Algorithms and Techniques (APPROX/RANDOM 2016). Schloss Dagstuhl-Leibniz-Zentrum fuer Informatik
Chen Y, He S, Hou F, Shi Z, Chen J (2017) Promoting device-to-device communication in cellular networks by contract-based incentive mechanisms. IEEE Netw 31(3):14–20
Chung BC, Cho DH (2016) Mobile data offloading with almost blank subframe in LTE-LAA and Wi-Fi coexisting networks based on coalition game. IEEE Commun Lett 21(3):608–611
Cisco U (2020) Cisco annual internet report (2018–2023) white paper
Cisco U (2021) Cisco networking trends report (2018–2023)
Daly EM, Haahr M (2007) Social network analysis for routing in disconnected delay-tolerant manets. In Proceedings of the 8th ACM international symposium on Mobile ad hoc networking and computing, pp. 32–40
Dash SK, Dash S, Mishra J, Mishra S (2020) Opportunistic mobile data offloading using machine learning approach. Wireless Pers Commun 110(1):125–139
Eagle N (2007) Alex (Sandy) Pentland, David Lazer, “Inferring social network structure using mobile phone data.” Proc Natl Acad Sci (PNAS) 106(36):15274–15278
Eagle N, Pentland AS (2006) Reality mining: sensing complex social systems. Pers Ubiquit Comput 10(4):255–268
Eugster P, Felber P, Guerraoui R, Kermarrec AM (2001) The many faces of publish/subscribe,“EPFL, Lausanne. Switzerland, Tech. Rep. DSC ID: 200104, 2001.[Online]. Available: citeseer. nj. nec. com/442483. html
Barnett T, Jain S, Andra U, Khurana T (2018) Cisco visual networking index (VNI), Complete forecast update, 2017–2022
Gao G, Xiao M, Wu J, Han K, Huang L (2016) Deadline-sensitive mobile data offloading via opportunistic communications. In 2016 13th Annual IEEE International Conference on Sensing, Communication, and Networking (SECON). IEEE, pp. 1–9
Ghorbani M, Rabiee HR, Khodadadi A (2016) Bayesian overlapping community detection in dynamic networks. arXiv preprint arXiv:1605.02288.
Gupta V, Rohil MK (2012) Mobile Data Offloading: Benefits, Issues, and Technological Solutions. In Advances in Computer Science, Engineering & Applications. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp. 73–80
Han B, Hui P, Kumar VA, Marathe MV, Pei G, Srinivasan A (2010) Cellular traffic offloading through opportunistic communications: a case study. In Proceedings of the 5th ACM workshop on Challenged networks, pp. 31–38
Han B, Hui P, Kumar VA, Marathe MV, Shao J, Srinivasan A (2011) Mobile data offloading through opportunistic communications and social participation. IEEE Trans Mob Comput 11(5):821–834
Hassija V, Saxena V, Chamola V (2020) A mobile data offloading framework based on a combination of blockchain and virtual voting. Software: Practice and Experience 1–18
Hoteit S, Secci S, Pujolle G, Wolisz A, Ziemlicki C, Smoreda Z (2015) Mobile data traffic offloading over Passpoint hotspots. Comput Netw 84:76–93
Hu Z, Lu Z, Wen X, Li Q (2017) Stochastic-geometry-based performance analysis of delayed mobile data offloading with mobility prediction in dense IEEE 802.11 networks. IEEE Access 5:23060–23068
Huang D, Wang P, Niyato D (2012) A dynamic offloading algorithm for mobile computing. IEEE Trans Wireless Commun 11(6):1991–1995
Hui P, Chaintreau A, Scott J, Gass R, Crowcroft J, Diot C (2005) Pocket switched networks and human mobility in conference environments. In Proceedings of the 2005 ACM SIGCOMM workshop on Delay-tolerant networking, pp. 244–251
Ikram AA, Javed AR, Rizwan M, Abid R, Crichigno J, Srivastava G (2021) Mobile cloud computing framework for securing data. In 2021 44th International Conference on Telecommunications and Signal Processing (TSP). IEEE, pp. 309–315
Jiang J, Zhang S, Li B, Li B (2015) Maximized cellular traffic offloading via device-to-device content sharing. IEEE J Sel Areas Commun 34(1):82–91
Jonker R, Volgenant T (1986) Improving the Hungarian assignment algorithm. Oper Res Lett 5(4):171–175
Kang X, Sun S (2015) Incentive mechanism design for mobile data offloading in heterogeneous networks. In 2015 IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC). IEEE, pp. 7731–7736
Kaur R, Kumar R, Bhondekar AP, Kapur P (2013) Human opinion dynamics: an inspiration to solve complex optimization problems. Sci Rep 3(1):1–7
Kempe D, Kleinberg J, Tardos É (2003) Maximizing the spread of influence through a social network. In Proceedings of the ninth ACM SIGKDD international conference on Knowledge discovery and data mining, pp. 137–146
Khan T, Ahmad N, Cao Y, Jalal SA, Asif M, ulHaq S, Cruichshank H (2017) Certificate revocation in vehicular ad hoc networks techniques and protocols: a survey. Science China Inf Sci 60(10):1–18
Kuhn HW (1955) The Hungarian method for the assignment problem. Nav Res Logist Q 2(1–2):83–97
La QD, Quek TQ, Shin H (2018) Dynamic network formation game with social awareness in D2D communications. IEEE Trans Wireless Commun 17(10):6544–6558
Lee J, Yi Y, Chong S, Jin Y (2014) Economics of WiFi offloading: trading delay for cellular capacity. IEEE Trans Wireless Commun 13(3):1540–1554
Lee K, Lee J, Yi Y, Rhee I, Chong S (2012) Mobile data offloading: how much can WiFi deliver? IEEE/ACM Trans Netw 21(2):536–550
Li M, Quek TQ, Courcoubetis C (2017) Economics in mobile data offloading with uniform pricing. In 2017 IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC). IEEE, pp. 1–6
Li Y, Su G, Hui P, Jin D, Su L, Zeng L (2011) Multiple mobile data offloading through delay tolerant networks. In Proceedings of the 6th ACM workshop on Challenged networks, pp. 43–48
Li Z, Wang C, Yang S, Jiang C, Stojmenovic I (2015) Space-crossing: community-based data forwarding in mobile social networks under the hybrid communication architecture. IEEE Trans Wireless Commun 14(9):4720–4727
Liu D, Khoukhi L, Hafid A (2017) Data offloading in mobile cloud computing: a Markov Decision Process approach. In 2017 IEEE international conference on communications (ICC). IEEE, pp. 1–6
Liu W, Gong W, Du W, Zou C (2017) Computation offloading strategy for multi user mobile data streaming applications. In 2017 19th International Conference on Advanced Communication Technology (ICACT). IEEE, pp. 111–120
Magaia N, Sheng Z, Pereira PR, Correia M (2018) REPSYS: a robust and distributed incentive scheme for collaborative caching and dissemination in content-centric cellular-based vehicular delay-tolerant networks. IEEE Wirel Commun 25(3):65–71
Malliaros FD, Rossi MEG, Vazirgiannis M (2016) Locating influential nodes in complex networks. Sci Rep 6(1):1–10
Mayer CP, Waldhorst OP (2011) Offloading infrastructure using delay tolerant networks and assurance of delivery. In 2011 IFIP Wireless Days (WD). IEEE, pp. 1–7
Mills-Tettey GA, Stentz A, Dias MB (2007) The dynamic hungarian algorithm for the assignment problem with changing costs. Robotics Institute, Pittsburgh, PA, Tech. Rep. CMU-RI-TR-07–27
Munkres J (1957) Algorithms for the assignment and transportation problems. J Soc Ind Appl Math 5(1):32–38
Nguyen NP, Dinh TN, Tokala S, Thai MT (2011) Overlapping communities in dynamic networks: their detection and mobile applications. In Proceedings of the 17th annual international conference on Mobile computing and networking, pp. 85–96
Nichterlein A, Niedermeier R, Uhlmann J, Weller M (2013) On tractable cases of target set selection. Soc Netw Anal Min 3(2):233–256
Orimolade J, Ventura N (2015) Intelligent access network selection for data offloading in heterogeneous networks. In AFRICON 2015. IEEE, pp. 1–5
Patil AP, Kumari K (2014) Implementation and performance evaluation of data offloading approaches for mobile social networks. Int J Emerg Technol Adv Eng 4(7):348–356
Raghavan S, Zhang R (2015) Weighted target set selection on social networks. In The Robert H. smith school of business and institute for systems research. University of Maryland Maryland, USA, Tech. Rep
Raja G, Ganapathisubramaniyan A, Anbalagan S, Baskaran SBM, Raja K, Bashir AK (2020) Intelligent reward-based data offloading in next-generation vehicular networks. IEEE Internet Things J 7(5):3747–3758
Rebecchi F, De Amorim MD, Conan V, Passarella A, Bruno R, Conti M (2014) Data offloading techniques in cellular networks: a survey. IEEE Commun Surv Tutorials 17(2):580–603
Ryu JY, Lee J, Quek TQ (2016) Confidential cooperative communication with trust degree of potential eavesdroppers. IEEE Trans Wireless Commun 15(6):3823–3836
Shabbir M, Shabbir A, Iwendi C, Javed AR, Rizwan M, Herencsar N, Lin JCW (2021) Enhancing security of health information using modular encryption standard in mobile cloud computing. IEEE Access 9:8820–8834
Sharma P (2021) Energy efficient target set selection and buffer management for D2D mobile data offloading. Int J Data Netw Sci 5(1):1–10
Sharma P, Shukla S, Vasudeva A (2021) Trust-based opportunistic network offloaders for smart agriculture. Int J Agric Environ Inform Syst (IJAEIS) 12(1):37–54
Sharma P, Shukla S, Vasudeva A (2021) Data offloading via optimal target set selection in opportunistic networks. Mobile Networks and Applications 26(3):1270–1280
Song X, Qin L, Qi H, Li S, Qian H, Dong L, Ni Y (2020) Incentive framework for mobile data offloading market under QoE-aware users. IET Commun 14(13):2151–2161
Srinivasan V, Motani M, Ooi WT (2006) Analysis and implications of student contact patterns derived from campus schedules. In Proceedings of the 12th annual international conference on Mobile computing and networking, pp. 86–97
Sun F, Hou F, Zhou H, Liu B, Chen J, Gui L (2017) Equilibriums in the mobile-virtual-network-operator-oriented data offloading. IEEE Trans Veh Technol 67(2):1622–1634
Sushma M, Naveen KP (2020) Mobile Data Offloading with Flexible Pricing. In 2020 18th International Symposium on Modeling and Optimization in Mobile, Ad Hoc, and Wireless Networks (WiOPT). IEEE, pp. 1–8
Thien HT, Vu VH, Koo I (2020) Game theory-based smart mobile-data offloading scheme in 5G cellular networks. Appl Sci 10(7):2327
Valerio L, Bruno R, Passarella A (2014) Adaptive data offloading in opportunistic networks through an actor-critic learning method. In Proceedings of the 9th ACM MobiCom workshop on Challenged networks, pp. 31–36
Valerio L, Bruno R, Passarella A (2015) Cellular traffic offloading via opportunistic networking with reinforcement learning. Comput Commun 71:129–141
Wang J, Jing X, Yan Z, Fu Y, Pedrycz W, Yang LT (2020) A survey on trust evaluation based on machine learning. ACM Comput Surv (CSUR) 53(5):1–36
Wang T, Li P, Wang X, Wang Y, Guo T, Cao Y (2019) A comprehensive survey on mobile data offloading in heterogeneous network. Wireless Netw 25(2):573–584
Wang X, Chen M, Han Z, Wu DO, Kwon TT (2014) TOSS: Traffic offloading by social network service-based opportunistic sharing in mobile social networks. In IEEE INFOCOM 2014-IEEE Conference on Computer Communications. IEEE, pp. 2346–2354
Xie J, Kelley S, Szymanski BK (2013) Overlapping community detection in networks: the state-of-the-art and comparative study. ACM Comput Surv (CSUR) 45(4):1–35
Xu D, Li Y, Chen X, Li J, Hui P, Chen S, Crowcroft J (2018) A survey of opportunistic offloading. IEEE Communi Surv Tutorials 20(3):2198–2236
Xu H, Wen X, Lu Z, Hu Z, Jing W, Chen K (2016) Performance analysis of delayed mobile data offloading with multi-level priority. In 2016 IEEE 27th Annual International Symposium on Personal, Indoor, and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC). IEEE, pp. 1–6
Yan J, Wu D, Sanyal S, Wang R (2017) Trust-oriented partner selection in D2D cooperative communications. IEEE Access 5:3444–3453
Zhang C, Gu B, Liu Z, Yamori K, Tanaka Y (2016) A reinforcement learning approach for cost-and energy-aware mobile data offloading. In 2016 18th Asia-Pacific network operations and management symposium (APNOMS). IEEE, pp. 1–6
Zhang Q, Gui L, Tian F, Sun F (2017) A caching-based incentive mechanism for cooperative data offloading. In 2017 IEEE International Conference on Communications Workshops (ICC Workshops). IEEE, pp. 1376–1381
Zhang X, Guo L, Li M, Fang Y (2017) Motivating human-enabled mobile participation for data offloading. IEEE Trans Mob Comput 17(7):1624–1637
Zhou H, Wang H, Li X, Leung VC (2018) A survey on mobile data offloading technologies. IEEE Access 6:5101–5111
Zhu X, Li Y, Jin D, Lu J (2017) Contact-aware optimal resource allocation for mobile data offloading in opportunistic vehicular networks. IEEE Trans Veh Technol 66(8):7384–7399
Zhuo X, Gao W, Cao G, Hua S (2013) An incentive framework for cellular traffic offloading. IEEE Trans Mob Comput 13(3):541–555
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Sharma, P., Nisha, Shukla, S. et al. An Era of Mobile Data Offloading Opportunities: A Comprehensive Survey. Mobile Netw Appl 29, 13–28 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11036-023-02116-8
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11036-023-02116-8