Network Resource Sharing Games with Instantaneous Reciprocity

TL;DR

This paper introduces a strategic game model for network resource sharing among operators, demonstrating convergence to Nash equilibrium and significant performance gains in spectrum sharing scenarios.

Contribution

It presents a generic game-theoretic framework for resource sharing with proven convergence and applies it to inter-operator spectrum sharing in small-cell environments.

Findings

Game has a Nash equilibrium

Greedy game converges quickly

Performance improves significantly over default configurations

Abstract

We propose a generic strategic network resource sharing game between a set of players representing operators. The players negotiate which sets of players share given resources, serving users with varying sensitivity to interference. We prove that the proposed game has a Nash equilibrium, to which a greedily played game converges. Furthermore, simulation results show that, when applied to inter-operator spectrum sharing in small-cell indoor office environment, the convergence is fast and there is a significant performance improvement for the operators when compared to the default resource usage configuration.