Broker Coordination in Demand Responsive Dynamic Spectrum Access Settings

In this paper we propose cooperative/noncooperative operation models for revenue seeking spectrum brokers who coordinate to manage access to the same spectrum bands in adjacent areas. We consider a setting where users of spectrum are involved in peer-to-peer links with QoS requirements. Each wireless transmission (link) is priced collectively by all revenue seeking brokers whose responsibility areas are affected by the transmission (via interference). We propose a two-level coordination mechanism. At the pricing-level, the brokers affected by a given link collectively determine prices. At the admission level, all brokers potentially affected by all transmissions collectively determine the set of link requests that are to be permitted. The links are modeled as price sensitive users who may or may not form connections, based on the total price asked. Experimental results show that cooperation significantly increases both the number of active links and broker revenues. Relative gains achieved by pricing level cooperation alone or admission level cooperation alone depend on price sensitivity parameters for the links as well as the total number of link formation requests.