779 research outputs found

    Unlocking the deployment of spectrum sharing with a policy enforcement framework

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    Spectrum sharing has been proposed as a promising way to increase the efficiency of spectrum usage by allowing incumbent operators (IOs) to share their allocated radio resources with licensee operators (LOs), under a set of agreed rules. The goal is to maximize a common utility, such as the sum rate throughput, while maintaining the level of service required by the IOs. However, this is only guaranteed under the assumption that all “players”respect the agreed sharing rules. In this paper, we propose a comprehensive framework for licensed shared access (LSA) networks that discourages LO misbehavior. Our framework is built around three core functions: misbehavior detection via the employment of a dedicated sensing network; a penalization function; and, a behavior-driven resource allocation. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that these components are combined for the monitoring/policing of the spectrum under the LSA framework. Moreover, a novel simulator for LSA is provided as an open access tool, serving the purpose of testing and validating our proposed techniques via a set of extensive system-level simulations in the context of mobile network operators, where IOs and several competing LOs are considered. The results demonstrate that violation of the agreed sharing rules can lead to a great loss of resources for the misbehaving LOs, the amount of which is controlled by the system. Finally, we promote that including a policy enforcement function as part of the spectrum sharing system can be beneficial for the LSA system, since it can guarantee compliance with the spectrum sharing rules and limit the short-term benefits arising from misbehavior

    Fostering Collaboration in Emerging Three-Tiered Spectrum Markets

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    Ensuring optimum spectral efficiency is a critical requirement for current wireless networks to cope with the ever-growing flow of wireless data traffic, using limited spectral resources. As such, spectrum sharing, which allows different grades of users, as well as multiple networking standards to co-exist and utilize in the same frequency band, has become a topic of great intrigue. Due to the inherent advantages of these schemes, the US government has opened up vast amounts of federal spectrum that supports spectrum sharing. The Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) proposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is one of them. A tiered spectrum sharing approach, CBRS allows end commercial users to share the radio spectrum with federal incumbent users in the 3,550-3,700 MHz range. Employing a light leasing approach, the FCC aims to encourage the licensed providers of CBRS called the Priority Access License (PAL), to lease/share their licensed spectrum with unlicensed users named the General Authorized Access (GAA) for limited duration, which is essential for the maximum utilization of the CBRS bandwidth, but the current approach proves ineffective for that purpose. In this thesis, we propose a novel clustered framework to facilitate this sharing, where GAA users are grouped into multiple distinct geographical clusters and request access to licensed spectrum through the clusters in a collaborative manner rather than individually. Each cluster will nominate a central entity denoted as the GAA leader to communicate their requests to the PAL operators, as well as establish temporary connections with PAL access points once granted permission for licensed CBRS access, to be used by GAAs outside the operators coverage range. The leaders will also receive information from the PAL operators regarding the number of requests they are willing to accept and transmit that to the GAAs within the cluster. This process reduces the amount of information flow between the licensed and unlicensed entities, thereby providing a convenient platform for CBRS spectrum sharing. In order to determine the leader, the role of which can be assumed by any of the GAA users within the cluster, we formulate a distributed leader selection algorithm algorithm called the LSA, which takes into account the signal strength of the PAL access points available the GAA users, as well as the network density of each GAA node, to assign a score called the leader evaluation score (LES) to each GAA user and nominate the user with the highest score as the leader. To encourage PAL operators to frequently share their licensed spectrum, we incorporate a government reward model, where operators are incentivized by gaining access to additional spectrum for limited periods based on their level of sharing

    SMART: Coordinated Double-Sided Seal Bid Multiunit First Price Auction Mechanism for Cloud-Based TVWS Secondary Spectrum Market

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    Spectrum trading is an important aspect of television white space (TVWS) and it is driven by the failure of spectrum sensing techniques. In spectrum trading, the primary users lease their unoccupied spectrum to the secondary users for a market fee. Although spectrum trading is considered as a reliable approach, it is confronted with a spectrum transaction completion time problem, which negatively impacts on end-users Quality of Service and Quality of Experience metrics. Spectrum transaction completion time is the duration to successfully conduct TVWS spectrum trading. To address this issue, this paper proposes simple mechanism auction reward truthful (SMART), a fast and iterative machine learning-assisted spectrum trading model to address this issue. Simulated results indicate thatSMART out-performs referenced VERUM algorithm in three key performance indicators: bit-error rate, instantaneous throughput, and probability of dropped packets by 10%, 5%, and 15%, respectively

    An Agent-Based Model for Secondary Use of Radio Spectrum

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    Wireless communications rely on access to radio spectrum. With a continuing proliferation of wireless applications and services, the spectrum resource becomes scarce. The measurement studies of spectrum usage, however, reveal that spectrum is being used sporadically in many geographical areas and times. In an attempt to promote efficiency of spectrum usage, the Federal Communications Commission has supported the use of market mechanism to allocate and assign radio spectrum. We focus on the secondary use of spectrum defined as a temporary access of existing licensed spectrum by a user who does not own a spectrum license. The secondary use of spectrum raises numerous technical, institutional, economic, and strategic issues that merit investigation. Central to the issues are the effects of transaction costs associated with the use of market mechanism and the uncertainties due to potential interference.The research objective is to identify the pre-conditions as to when and why the secondary use would emerge and in what form. We use transaction cost economics as the theoretical framework in this study. We propose a novel use of agent-based computational economics to model the development of the secondary use of spectrum. The agent-based model allows an integration of economic and technical considerations to the study of pre-conditions to the secondary use concept. The agent-based approach aims to observe the aggregate outcomes as a result of interactions among agents and understand the process that leads to the secondary use, which can then be used to create policy instruments in order to obtain the favorable outcomes of the spectrum management

    A Hierarchical Spectrum Access Scheme for TV White Space Coexistence in Hetergeneous Networks

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    Among current techniques for dynamic access to television (TV) white space (TVWS), geolocation database-based access provides a promising performance in protecting the TV-band incumbents from interference that cannot be efficiently achieved in other license-exempt models. However, in heterogeneous wireless networks, most portable devices do not have such access and may cause interference to TV incumbents. We propose a hierarchical model for spectrum sharing in TVWS that includes a wide range of fixed and portable devices. In the first tier, the TV broadcaster can lease the spectrum bands to local fixed users based on a soft license agreement. The fixed users are allowed to share access to this spectrum with some mobile users in their proximity in exchange for cooperative relaying. We consider a practical scenario, where only partial channel state information (CSI) is available at the users\u27 transmitters, and we propose a robust algorithm against such uncertainties in CSI values. We also propose a reputation-based relay selection mechanism to identify selfish portable users. The proposed spectrum sharing framework can provide a practical model for TVWS-coexistence that prevents undesired interference to the incumbents while restricting interference among the unlicensed devices. The simulation results show the enhancement of fixed users\u27 rate compared with alternative relay selection methods

    Traffic offloading in future, heterogeneous mobile networks

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    The rise of third-party content providers and the introduction of numerous applications has been driving the growth of mobile data traffic in the past few years. In order to tackle this challenge, Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) aim to increase their networks' capacity by expanding their infrastructure, deploying more Base Stations (BSs). Particularly, the creation of Heterogeneous Networks (HetNets) and the application of traffic offloading through the dense deployment of low-power BSs, the small cells (SCs), is one promising solution to address the aforementioned explosive data traffic increase. Due to their financial implementation requirements, which could not be met by the MNOs, the emergence of third parties that deploy small cell networks creates new business opportunities. Thus, the investigation of frameworks that facilitate the implementation of outsourced traffic offloading, the collaboration and the transactions among MNOs and third-party small cell owners, as well as the provision of participation incentives for all stakeholders is essential for the deployment of the necessary new infrastructure and capacity expansion. The aforementioned emergence of third-party content providers and their applications not only drives the increase in mobile data traffic, but also create new Quality of Service (QoS) as well as Quality of Experience (QoE) requirements that the MNOs need to guarantee for the satisfaction of their subscribers. Moreover, even though the MNOs accommodate this traffic, they do not get any monetary compensation or subsidization for the required capacity expansion. On the contrary, their revenues reduce continuously. To that end, it is necessary to research and design network and economic functionalities adapted to the new requirements, such as QoE-aware Radio Resource Management and Dynamic Pricing (DP) strategies, which both guarantee the subscriber satisfaction and maximization the MNO profit (to compensate the diminished MNOs' revenues and the increasing deployment investment). Following a thorough investigation of the state-of-the-art, a set of research directions were identified. This dissertation consists of contributions on network sharing and outsourced traffic offloading for the capacity enhancement of MNO networks, and the design of network and economic functions for the sustainable deployment and use of the densely constructed HetNets. The contributions of this thesis are divided into two main parts, as described in the following. The first part of the thesis introduces an innovative approach on outsourced traffic offloading, where we present a framework for the Multi-Operator Radio Access Network (MORAN) sharing. The proposed framework is based on an auction scheme used by a monopolistic Small Cell Operator (SCO), through which he leases his SC infrastructure to MNOs. As the lack of information on the future offered load and the auction strategies creates uncertainty for the MNOs, we designed a learning mechanism that assists the MNOs in their bid-placing decisions. Our simulations show that our proposal almost maximizes the social welfare, satisfying the involved stakeholders and providing them with participation incentives. The second part of the thesis researches the use of network and economic functions for MNO profit maximization, while guaranteeing the users' satisfaction. Particularly, we designed a model that accommodates a plethora of services with various QoS and QoE requirements, as well as diverse pricing, that is, various service prices and different charging schemes. In this model, we proposed QoE-aware user association, resource allocation and joint resource allocation and dynamic pricing algorithms, which exploit the QoE-awareness and the network's economic aspects, such as the profit. Our simulations have shown that our proposals gain substantial more profit compared to traditional and state-of-the-art solutions, while providing a similar or even better network performance.El aumento de los proveedores de contenido de terceros y la introducción de numerosas aplicaciones ha impulsado el crecimiento del tráfico de datos en redes móviles en los últimos años. Para hacer frente a este desafío, los operadores de redes móviles (Mobile Network Operators, MNOs) apuntan a aumentar la capacidad de sus redes mediante la expansión de su infraestructura y el despliegue de más estaciones base (BS). Particularmente, la creación de Redes Heterogéneas (Heterogenous Networks, HetNets) y la aplicación de descarga de tráfico a través del despliegue denso de BSs de baja potencia, las células pequeñas (small cells, SCs), es una solución prometedora para abordar el aumento del tráfico de datos explosivos antes mencionado. Debido a sus requisitos de implementación financiera, que los MNO no pudieron cumplir, la aparición de terceros que implementan redes de células pequeñas crea nuevas oportunidades comerciales. Por lo tanto, la investigación de marcos que faciliten la implementación de la descarga tercerizada de tráfico, la colaboración y las transacciones entre MNOs y terceros propietarios de células pequeñas, así como la provisión de incentivos de participación para todas las partes interesadas esencial para el despliegue de la nueva infraestructura necesaria y la expansión de la capacidad. La aparición antes mencionada de proveedores de contenido de terceros y sus aplicaciones no solo impulsa el aumento del tráfico de datos móviles, sino también crea nuevos requisitos de calidad de servicio (Quality of Service, QoS) y calidad de la experiencia (Quality of Experience, QoE) que los operadores de redes móviles deben garantizar para la satisfacción de sus suscriptores. Además, a pesar de que los operadores de redes móviles adaptan este tráfico, no obtienen ninguna compensación monetaria o subsidio por la expansión de capacidad requerida. Por el contrario, sus ingresos se reducen continuamente. Para ello, es necesario investigar y diseñar funcionalidades económicas y de red adaptadas a los nuevos requisitos, tales como las estrategias QoE-conscientes de gestión de recursos de radio y de precios dinámicos (Dynamic Pricing, DP), que garantizan la satisfacción del abonado y la maximización de la ganancia de operador móvil (para compensar los ingresos de los MNOs disminuidos y la creciente inversión de implementación). Después de una investigación exhaustiva del estado del arte, se identificaron un conjunto de direcciones de investigación. Esta disertación consiste en contribuciones sobre el uso compartido de redes y la descarga tercerizada de tráfico para la mejora de la capacidad de redes MNO, y el diseño de funciones económicas y de red para el despliegue y uso sostenible de las HetNets densamente construidas. Las contribuciones de esta tesis se dividen en dos partes principales, como se describe a continuación. La primera parte de la tesis presenta un enfoque innovador sobre la descarga subcontratada de tráfico, en el que presentamos un marco para el uso compartido de la red de acceso de radio de múltiples operadores (Multi-Operator RAN, MORAN). El marco propuesto se basa en un esquema de subasta utilizado por un operador monopólico de celda pequeña (Small Cell Operator, SCO), a través del cual arrienda su infraestructura SC a MNOs. Como la falta de información sobre la futura carga de red y las estrategias de subasta creaban incertidumbre para los MNO, diseñamos un mecanismo de aprendizaje que asiste a los MNO en sus decisiones de colocación de pujas. Nuestras simulaciones muestran que nuestra propuesta casi maximiza el bienestar social, satisfaciendo a las partes interesadas involucradas y proporcionándoles incentivos de participación. La segunda parte de la tesis investiga el uso de las funciones económicas y de red para la maximización de los beneficios de los MNOs, al tiempo que garantiza la satisfacción de los usuarios. Particularmente, diseñamos un modelo que acomoda una gran cantidad de servicios con diversos requisitos de QoS y QoE, tanto como diversos precios, es decir, varios precios de servicio y diferentes esquemas de cobro. En este modelo, propusimos algoritmos QoE-conscientes para asociación de usuarios, asignación de recursos y conjunta asignación de recursos y de fijación dinámica de precios, que explotan la conciencia de QoE y los aspectos económicos de la red, como la ganancia. Nuestras simulaciones han demostrado que nuestras propuestas obtienen un beneficio sustancial en comparación con las soluciones tradicionales y del estado del arte, a la vez que proporcionan un rendimiento de red similar o incluso mejor.Postprint (published version
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