Multi-homing in Heterogeneous Wireless Access Networks: A Stackelberg Game for Pricing

Abstract

Multimedia applications over wireless networks have been evolving to augmented reality or virtual reality services. However, a rich data size compared to conventional multimedia services causes bandwidth bottlenecks over wireless networks, which is one of the main reasons why those applications are not used widely. To overcome this limitation, bandwidth aggregation techniques, which exploit a multi-path transmission, have been considered to maximize link utilization. Currently, most of the conventional researches have been focusing on the user end problems to improve the quality of service (QoS) through optimal load distribution. In this paper, we address the joint pricing and load distribution problem for multi-homing in heterogeneous wireless access networks (ANs), considering the interests of both the users and the service providers. Specifically, we consider profit from resource allocation and cost of power consumption expenditure for operation as an utility of each service provider. Here, users decide how much to request the resource and how to split the resource over heterogeneous wireless ANs to minimize their cost while supporting the required QoS. Then, service providers compete with each other by setting the price to maximize their utilities over user reactions. We study the behaviors of users and service providers by analyzing their hierarchical decision-making process as a multileader-, multifollower Stackelberg game. We show that both the user and service provider strategies are closed form solutions. Finally, we discuss how the proposed scheme is well converged to equilibrium points.