Blockchain-Enabled NextGen Service Architecture for Mobile Internet Offload

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper proposes a blockchain-enabled offloading framework that allows a subscriber of a mobile operator to temporarily use another MNO or WiFi provider’s higher-speed network. A smart contract is employed to allow diverse entities such as MNOs, Brokers and WiFi Providers to automatically execute mutual agreements, to enable the utilization of third-party infrastructure in a secure and controlled manner. Their proposed framework is tested using Ethereum’s testnet on the Goerli network using Alchemy and Hardhat.
The contributions is relatively novel, moreover the expiremnt is throughout and validates the propose scheme.
I have just few comments:
-can the proposed scheme be extended to other consensus algorithms, other than proof-of-authority? if yes, you can add that as a future work direction
-how many nodes are was involved in ns-3 simulation
-some relevant works are missing:
[1]Latif, Zohaib, et al. "SDBlockEdge: SDN-Blockchain Enabled Multihop Task Offloading in Collaborative Edge Computing." IEEE Sensors Journal 22.15 (2022): 15537-15548.
[2]Naouri, Abdenacer, et al. "A novel framework for mobile-edge computing by optimizing task offloading." IEEE Internet of Things Journal 8.16 (2021): 13065-13076.

Author Response

Please find our response in the attached document.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript proposes a blockchain-enabled offloading framework that allows a subscriber of a mobile operator to use another MNO or WiFi provider’s. The simulation results confirm that the proposed method can achieve a higher result than existing schemes. Nonetheless, there are aspects that require improvements:

1) In the first section, the authors should more clearly define the goals, objectives, main contribution and motivation of the research.

2) What are the limits that may be associated with this implementation? For example, the appearance of delays during handover and switching between networks, as well as frequent disconnections during fast movement.

3) The authors should pay more attention to the situation when data from a different number of users will be offloaded via WiFi.

4) L57: The authors suggest using a broker, but the use of blockchain and smart contracts makes it possible to exclude a third party and organize cooperation directly.

5) L279-L281: The authors should elaborate on the information, as it is not entirely clear what was meant.

6) L349-L352: The authors should describe in more detail the work with smart contracts in 2 test networks. How is it implemented?

7) Fig. 1 should be moved to the appropriate section and the name of all objects should be added.

Author Response

Please find our response in the attached document.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The article shows an interesting usecase of publication in offloading mobile networks between various participants to increase the performance of the network. The article is generally well written, however, these are some of the concerns that must be addressed.

Section Introduction

- No explanation for Figure 1. Figures must be referenced and positioned close to the paragraphs where they are explained

- The statement in summarizing the rest of the work in the Introduction section reads "The rest of the paper is organized as follows. We begin by presenting a high-level overview of our system.". However, you can't begin research by presenting the high-level architecture of a solution. The first section of the paper should be focused on clearly articulating the research problem and research objectives.

Section Related Work:

- There are a lot of research articles already on related topics such as a decentralized market place for internet of things. Such articles should be included in the literature review section.

Section 3

- The figure 1 showing the high level architecture of the designed system should be moved to this section and properly explained.

- "Phase 5 - Blockchain Transactions and Billing" I was expecting to see in this part of the paper how tokens are used for settlement/ rewarding system between the network participants. For instance, how are brokers and WIFI providers rewarded when mobile networks offload their networks using their WIFI services. I believe, tokens on public blockchain provides further justification for using this type of blockchain in implementing the solution.

Section Discussion:

- This section is currently missing, thus, its difficult to understand the implication of the experiment results and interpret them accordingly. For instance, the network speed achieved during the experiment, what does it even mean? Also, the ether prices for deploying and executing transactions within the application, is it high or acceptable for real-world use of the application? All the experiment results must be interpreted accordingly.

- Authors need to also discuss the results of their work in comparison with other blockchain applications that provided marketplace for IoT based solutions.

Section Conclusion:

-The limitations of the work are missing and how it relates to your future research.

Author Response

Please find our response in the attached document.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

My comments have been addressed

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors convinced me and correctly considered all my comments. No further comments on this paper.