Cooperative optimal pricing for stochastic access control in heterogeneous wireless networks

As Radio Access Technology (RAT) being greatly developed nowadays, Call Admission Control (CAC) is also evolving to provide inter-network connectivity since mobile terminals are able to access multiple networks. In this paper, we propose a pricing-based resource allocation scheme in a heterogeneous wireless environment consisting of several different Radio Access Networks (RANs). We suppose that each RAN caters two kinds of customers, primary and secondary users. Secondary users (SUs) are charged once based on current system state by service provider to join a RAN. We integrate stochastic call admission control (SCAC) with dynamic pricing and formulate them as an infinite horizon average reward problem to maximize the expectation of system revenue in the long run. The optimal pricing policy characteristics are analyzed based on series of computation results under various system conditions. Assessments carried out for a small network model show that a system with relatively small PU blocking punishment gains more profit and the income could be improved by nearly 60% in particular cases.