A Multiple Access Channel Game Using Latency Metric

Abstract

The paper considers a multi-access channel scenario, where several users communicate with a base station, and investigates power allocation is a game-theoretic framework. The communication metric is the inverse signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) at the base station, which, for low SINR reflects communication delay. Each user faces a trade-off between the latency of the signal received by the base station, and the price that the user pays for using a specific amount of power that causes interference in the system. The equilibrium is derived in closed form and its uniqueness is proven. It is shown that the resulting strategy allows each user to maintain uninterrupted communication. For comparison purposes, we construct a specific three user network scenario, and study the SINR and throughput metrics. In that setting, we show that, unlike the latency metric, SINR and throughput may give rise to multiple equilibria, which may cause destabilization of communication.