Analysis of duopoly price competition between WLAN providers

Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Communications, 2009, p. 1-5With the rapid development of wireless Internet services, several WLAN service providers may coexist in one public hotspot to compete for the same group of customers, leading to an inevitable price competition. The charged price and the provisioned packet loss at each provider are major factors in determining users' demands and behaviors, which in turn will affect providers' revenue and social welfare. In this paper, we set up a novel game model to analyze a duopoly price competition. We first show the users' demands are distributed between providers according to a Wardrop Equilibrium and then prove the existence of a Nash equilibrium on providers' charged prices. Through analysis, we further find that in Nash equilibrium state the social welfare is very close to its maximal value in cooperative situation. Furthermore, the providers' aggregate revenues also do not decrease when the users have high sensitivity about the charged prices. Thus the competitive duopoly WLAN market can still run in an efficient way even in the absence of complex regulation schemes. ©2009 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

Road-side units operators in competition: A game-theoretical approach

International audienceWe study the interactions among Internet providers in vehicular networks which offer access to commuters via road side units (RSUs). Namely, we propose a game-theoretical framework to model the competition on prices between vehicular Internet providers to capture the largest amount of users, thus selfishly maximizing the revenues. The equilibria of the aforementioned game are characterized under different mobile traffic conditions, RSU capabilities and users requirements and expectations. In particular, we also consider in the analysis the case where mobile users modify the price they accept to pay for the access as the likeliness of finding an access solution decreases. Our game-theoretical analysis gives insights on the outcomes of the competition between vehicular Internet providers, further highlighting some counter-intuitive behaviors; as an example, comparing with the case when users have constant price valuation over time, having users inclined to increasing their "acceptable" price may force vehicle Internet providers to charge lower prices due to competition

Flexible Investment Decisions in the Telecommunications Industry: Case Applications using Real Options

The telecommunications sector is one of the most innovative, high-growth, capitalintensive yet volatile sector of the economy. This research addresses critical concerns of how, when, and why an enterprise or a service provider should undertake new investments. The study investigates the power of flexibility in investment decision making process, by applying the real options methodology. Five case applications are studied: a) investment decisions in next generation wireless networks; b) investing in integrated wireless networks; c) migration to wireless broadband internet services; d) valuing deployment of Wi-Fi networks in enterprise markets; and e) valuing Hosted VOIP services for enterprise markets. The case studies are analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively

Game theory for collaboration in future networks

Cooperative strategies have the great potential of improving network performance and spectrum utilization in future networking environments. This new paradigm in terms of network management, however, requires a novel design and analysis framework targeting a highly flexible networking solution with a distributed architecture. Game Theory is very suitable for this task, since it is a comprehensive mathematical tool for modeling the highly complex interactions among distributed and intelligent decision makers. In this way, the more convenient management policies for the diverse players (e.g. content providers, cloud providers, home providers, brokers, network providers or users) should be found to optimize the performance of the overall network infrastructure. The authors discuss in this chapter several Game Theory models/concepts that are highly relevant for enabling collaboration among the diverse players, using different ways to incentivize it, namely through pricing or reputation. In addition, the authors highlight several related open problems, such as the lack of proper models for dynamic and incomplete information games in this area.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Oligopolistic competition in heterogeneous access networks under asymmetries of cost and capacity

With the rapid development of broadband wireless access technologies, multiple wireless service provider (WSPs) operating on various wireless access technologies may coexist in one service area to compete for users, leading to a highly competitive environment for the WSPs. In such a competitive heterogeneous wireless access market, different wireless access technologies used by different WSPs have different bandwidth capacities with various costs. In this paper, we set up a noncooperative game model to study how the cost asymmetry and capacity asymmetry among WSPs affect the competition in this market. We first model such a competitive heterogeneous wireless access market as an oligopolistic price competition, in which multiple WSPs compete for a group of price- and delay-sensitive users through their prices, under cost and capacity asymmetries, to maximize their own profits. Then, we develop an analytical framework to investigate whether or not a Nash equilibrium can be achieved among the WSPs in the presence of the cost and capacity asymmetries, how the asymmetries of cost and capacity affect their equilibrium prices and what impact a new WSP with a cost and capacity advantage entering the market has on the equilibrium achieved among existing WSPs

Game theory for cooperation in multi-access edge computing

Cooperative strategies amongst network players can improve network performance and spectrum utilization in future networking environments. Game Theory is very suitable for these emerging scenarios, since it models high-complex interactions among distributed decision makers. It also finds the more convenient management policies for the diverse players (e.g., content providers, cloud providers, edge providers, brokers, network providers, or users). These management policies optimize the performance of the overall network infrastructure with a fair utilization of their resources. This chapter discusses relevant theoretical models that enable cooperation amongst the players in distinct ways through, namely, pricing or reputation. In addition, the authors highlight open problems, such as the lack of proper models for dynamic and incomplete information scenarios. These upcoming scenarios are associated to computing and storage at the network edge, as well as, the deployment of large-scale IoT systems. The chapter finalizes by discussing a business model for future networks.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio