On Pricing Methods to Address Preference Revelation and Distributed Control in Random Access Networks

In this paper, we examine the use of pricing for distributed, incentive-compatible and socially optimal resource allocation in a QoS-differentiated random-access wireless network. Specifically, we consider the uplink of a single-hop random access MAC where each user contends for channel access according to some user-chosen probability. Each user declares its utility function to the AP. The AP then sets a price for each user which is a function of the user´s declared utility function as well as its choice of access probability. We will show that, in fact, a two-part pricing scheme consisting of a penalty-based price (to address distributed implementation) and a mechanism-based price (to address the strategic behavior of users) is insufficient to guarantee social optimality of the access probabilities.