Fixed-Rate Resource Exchange for Multi-Operator Pico eNodeB

In this paper, we introduce a new multi-operator pico eNodeB (eNB) concept for cellular networks. It is expected that mobile data offloading will be performed effectively after installing the pico eNBs in cellular networks, owing to the rapid increase in mobile traffic. However, when several different operators independently install the pico eNBs, high costs and large amounts of space will be required for the installation. In addition, when several different operators accommodate their own user equipments (UEs) in the pico eNBs, not enough UEs can be accommodated. This is because the UEs are not evenly distributed in the coverage area of the pico eNBs. In this paper, the accommodation of the UEs of different operators in co-sited pico eNB is discussed as one of the solutions to these problems. For the accommodation of the UEs of different operators, wireless resources should be allocated to them. However, when each operator independently controls his wireless resources, the operator is not provided with an incentive to accommodate the UEs of the other operators in his pico eNBs. For this reason, an appropriate rule for appropriate allocation of the wireless resources to the UEs of different operators should be established. In this paper, by using the concepts of game theory and mechanism design, a resource allocation rule where each operator is provided with an incentive to allocate the wireless resources to the UEs of different operators is proposed. With the proposed rule, each operator is not required to disclose the control information like link quality and the number of UEs to the other operators. Furthermore, the results of a throughput performance evaluation confirm that the proposed scheme improves the total throughput as compared with individual resource allocation. key words: multi-operator, pico eNodeB, resource allocation, game theory, mechanism design