Reservation policies for revenue maximization from secondary spectrum access in cellular networks

We consider the problem of providing opportunistic spectrum access to secondary users in wireless cellular networks. From the standpoint of spectrum license holders, achieving benefits of secondary access entails balancing the revenue from such access and its impact on the primary service of the license holder. While dynamic optimization is a natural framework to pursue such a balance, spatial constraints due to interference and uncertain demand characteristics render exact solutions difficult. In this paper, we study guiding principles for spectrum license holders to accommodate secondary users via reservation-based admission policies. Using notions of dynamic optimization, we first develop the concept of average implied cost for establishing a connection in an isolated locality. The formula of the cost provides an explicit characterization of the value of spectrum access. We then generalize this concept to arbitrary topologies of interference relations and show that the generalization is justified under an analogue of the reduced load approximation judiciously adapted from the wireline to the wireless setting. An explicit characterization of this quantity demonstrates the localized nature of the relationship between overall network revenue and reservation parameters. Based on this relationship, we develop an online distributed algorithm for computing optimal reservation parameters. The performance of the algorithm is verified through a numerical study.