Sponsored data with ISP competition

We analyze the effect of sponsored data platforms when Internet service providers (ISPs) compete for subscribers and content providers (CPs) compete for a share of the bandwidth usage by the customers. Our analytical model is of a full information, leader-follower game. ISPs lead and set prices for sponsorship. CPs then make the binary decision of sponsoring or not sponsoring their content on the ISPs. Lastly, based on both of these, users make a two-part decision of choosing the ISP to which they subscribe, and the amount of data to consume from each of the CPs through the chosen ISP. User consumption is determined by a utility maximization framework, the sponsorship decision is determined by a non-cooperative game between the CPs, and the ISPs set their prices to maximize their profit in response to the prices set by the competing ISP. We analyze the pricing dynamics of the prices set by the ISPs, the sponsorship decisions that the CPs make and the market structure therein, and the surpluses of the ISPs, CPs, and users. This is the first analysis of the effect sponsored data platforms in the presence of ISP competition. We show that inter-ISP competition does not inhibit ISPs from extracting a significant fraction of the CP surplus. Moreover, the ISPs often have an incentive to significantly skew the CP marketplace in favor of the most profitable CP

QoE Driven Multimedia Service Schemes in Wireless Networks Resource Allocation: Evolution from Optimization, Game Theory, to Economics

In order to deal with the Quality of Experience (QoE) improvement issue in the wireless networks services. In this dissertation we first investigated the Device to Device (D2D) relaying approach in the conventional Base Station (BS) to User Equipment (UE) two entities multimedia service system. In this part, the Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) technology will be implemented in the D2D communication. Furthermore, factors such as the multimedia content distribution (i.e., Quad-tree fractal image compression method), the power allocation strategy, and modulation size are jointly considered to improve the QoE performance and energy efficiency. In addition, the emerging Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA) transmission method is becoming very popular and being considered as one of the most potential technologies for the next generation of wireless networks. For the purpose of improving the QoE of UE in the wireless multimedia service, the power allocation method and the corresponding limitations are studied in detail in the wireless system where the traditional Orthogonal Multiple Access (OMA) technology and the promising NOMA technology are compared. At last, facing the real business model in the wireless network services, where the Content Provider (CP), Wireless Carrier (WC), and UE are included, we extend on work from the conventional BS-UE two entities research model to the CP-WC-UE three entities model. More specifically, a generalized best response Smart Media Pricing (SMP) method is studied in this dissertation. In our work, the CP and WC are treated as the service provider alliance. The SMP approach and the game theory are utilized to determine the data length of UE and the data price rate determined by the CP-WC union. It is worth pointing out that the concavity of utility function is no longer necessary for seeking the game equilibrium under the proposed best response game solution. Numerical simulation results also validate the system performance improvement of our proposed transmission schemes

Oligopolies in private spectrum commons: analysis and regulatory implications

In an effort to make more spectrum available, recent initiatives by the FCC let mobile providers offer spot service of their licensed spectrum to secondary users, hence paving the way to dynamic secondary spectrum markets. This dissertation investigates secondary spectrum markets under different regulatory regimes by identifying profitability conditions and possible competitive outcomes in an oligopoly model. We consider pricing in a market where multiple providers compete for secondary demand. First, we analyze the market outcomes when providers adopt a coordinated access policy, where, besides pricing, a provider can elect to apply admission control on secondary users based on the state of its network. We next consider a competition when providers implement an uncoordinated access policy (i.e., no admission control). Through our analysis, we identify profitability conditions and fundamental price thresholds, including break-even and market sharing prices. We prove that regardless of the specific form of the secondary demand function, competition under coordinated access always leads to a price war outcome. In contrast, under uncoordinated access, market sharing becomes a viable market outcome if the intervals of prices for which the providers are willing to share the market overlap. We then turn our attention to how a network provider use carrier (spectrum) aggregation in order to lower its break-even price and gain an edge over its competition. To this end, we determine the optimal (minimum) level of carrier aggregation that a smaller provider needs. Under a quality-driven (QD) regime, we establish an efficient way of numerically calculating the optimal carrier aggregation and derive scaling laws. We extend the results to delay-related metrics and show their applications to profitable pricing in secondary spectrum markets. Finally, we consider the problem of profitability over a spatial topology, where identifying system behavior suffers from the curse of dimensionality. Hence, we propose an approximation model that captures system behavior to the first-order and provide an expression to calculate the break-even price at each network location and provide simulation results for accuracy comparison. All of our results hold for general forms of demand, thus avoid restricting assumptions of customer preferences and the valuation of the spectrum