Travel website caching

Advice and consultation regarding website caching. I wish to have a telephone conversation with an expert knowledgeable in Internet caching techniques both on the server side and the client side. I would like to explore the feasibility of caching travel oriented websites on a Portable Electronic Device (PED) such as a laptop computer or a PDA. The majority of time when the PED is in use, it will have a very limited real-time connection to the Internet of about 1,000 bits per second. Three or four times per week the PED will be connected to the Internet over a broadband connection for a period of about one hour each time it is connected. During this period, updates to the PED cache can be carried out. Would it be possible to cache sites such as Expedia, Orbitz or Travelocity and limit the use of the low-bandwidth, real-time Internet connection to checking price and availability and then carry out the data transfer needed to make a reservation? The hotel sections of these websites employ a considerable amount of graphics showing the hotel exterior, lobby, rooms, restaurants and other features. Ideally, all of these graphics would be cached on the PED such that when the PED is being used to explore hotel options the Internet isn’t required for looking at these pictures. Although these travel oriented websites deal with other services such as vacation packages, trains and cruise ships, my interest is only in air travel, car rentals and hotels. ## Deliverables The consultant I speak with should be prepared to: 1. Provide an estimate of the complexity of such an arrangement. 2. Provide an explanation of what systems would be needed to capture the initial cache data, how large that data would be and how quickly that data could be refreshed on the PED when the PED has access to a broadband connection to the Internet. 3. Provide estimates of how much send/receive data would be required to carry out a typical session and suggest ways of limiting this bandwidth through an intermediary service that the laptop or PDA communicates with. These estimates should be for reservations of flights, car rentals and hotels. 4. Discuss the caching of the maps that these websites use to show the locations of hotels. 5. Discuss practical ways for taking this analysis to a next step toward implementation. ## Platform Win32