NGL02-6: Game Theoretical Formulation of Admission Control and Pricing in Wireless Networks: The Case of Cooperating Providers

As the number of wireless network providers is constantly growing, the competition among them is about to increase as well. In future environments, where many wireless providers will be present as is the case of hotspot areas, it is realistic to assume that the subscription will be session-oriented, meaning that the users may start one session in one provider and another session in a different provider. As the QoS of the demanding applications will still have to be preserved, more sophisticated schemes have to be employed in the admission control process so that providers will maintain their market share. Extending our previous work, we consider the existence of a visiting provider in the area, that can accept sessions from the home provider, to absorb overflow traffic due to instant lack of resources. The situation is modeled through game theory and its solution generates an admission control scheme that can improve the utility for the provider, while at the same time ensures the satisfaction of all sides involved. The new algorithm that takes into account the cooperation of the two providers, is compared with our previous proposal and the benefits are outlined.