An Incentive Mechanism Design View for Hybrid Access in Small Cell Networks: Keeping a Secret Is Not Smart

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the hybrid access control policy in two-tier small cell networks from the perspective of incentive mechanism design, considering macro-cell base station's (MBS) private information. Then, we formulate this problem as a Stackelberg game. To be specific, the MBS and small cell base stations (SBSs) are modeled as leader and followers, respectively. A subsidy mechanism is adopted by MBS when the SBS can provide acceptable service level for macro user equipment. Moreover, we consider the impacts of MBS's private information on the Stackelberg equilibrium (SE) of the proposed game, and we present the equilibrium analysis and relationship under different available information circumstances. To obtain relatively satisfactory outcome for both MBS and SBS, we discuss the design of bargaining scheme based on the SE. Theoretical analysis and simulation results show that it is better for MBS to broadcast the private information to get more payoff from the perspective of incentive mechanism design.