Spectrum and service pricing for 802.22 networks

IEEE 802.22 standard is the first cognitive radio standard that targets the spectrum used by TV broadcasters. This has created a number of conflicts between mobile operators and TV operators, as the latter expects financial compensations from the entities accessing their spectrum. Thus, in the first part of this paper a new spectrum pricing mechanism based on a Bertrand game model meant to address this issue was proposed. The novelty of the proposed spectrum pricing is related to differentiation between the propagation characteristics of the different TV bands and also the scarcity of channels which have an impact on the demand, and thus on the spectrum pricing. The second part of the paper exemplifies how a Bertrand game model can solve the issue of service pricing for a Wireless Regional Area Network (WRAN) operator that is trying to deploy an 802.22 network in a region where a competitor already exists. In this work the service pricing was envisioned as a network preplanning step, one that would show the potential revenues for an operator by entering as inputs, among other, the competitor´s coverage area and spectrum pricing. The case study has been conducted through CNPT1, an ongoing cognitive radio network planning tool developed by the authors.