This paper studies price-based spectrum access control in cognitive radio
networks, which characterizes network operators' service provisions to
delay-sensitive secondary users (SUs) via pricing strategies. Based on the two
paradigms of shared-use and exclusive-use dynamic spectrum access (DSA), we
examine three network scenarios corresponding to three types of secondary
markets. In the first monopoly market with one operator using opportunistic
shared-use DSA, we study the operator's pricing effect on the equilibrium
behaviors of self-optimizing SUs in a queueing system. %This queue represents
the congestion of the multiple SUs sharing the operator's single \ON-\OFF
channel that models the primary users (PUs) traffic. We provide a queueing
delay analysis with the general distributions of the SU service time and PU
traffic using the renewal theory. In terms of SUs, we show that there exists a
unique Nash equilibrium in a non-cooperative game where SUs are players
employing individual optimal strategies. We also provide a sufficient condition
and iterative algorithms for equilibrium convergence. In terms of operators,
two pricing mechanisms are proposed with different goals: revenue maximization
and social welfare maximization. In the second monopoly market, an operator
exploiting exclusive-use DSA has many channels that will be allocated
separately to each entering SU. We also analyze the pricing effect on the
equilibrium behaviors of the SUs and the revenue-optimal and socially-optimal
pricing strategies of the operator in this market. In the third duopoly market,
we study a price competition between two operators employing shared-use and
exclusive-use DSA, respectively, as a two-stage Stackelberg game. Using a
backward induction method, we show that there exists a unique equilibrium for
this game and investigate the equilibrium convergence.Comment: 30 pages, one column, double spac
