Incentivizing spectrum sharing via subsidy regulations for future wireless networks

Abstract

Traditional regulatory methods for spectrum licensing have been recently identified as one of the causes for under-utilization of the valuable radio spectrum. Governmental regulatory agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are seeking ways to remove stringent regulatory barriers and facilitate broader access to the spectrum resources. The goal of such new FCC-backed efforts is to allow for an improved and ubiquitous sharing of the precious radio spectrum between commercial service providers. In this paper, an interdisciplinary framework for spectrum management is proposed in which the government, using its regulatory power, can motivate spectrum sharing among the service providers in order to gain a net social benefit. In this framework, a noncooperative game is used to analyze how to foster more sharing of the radio spectrum via the use of regulatory power. The providers are incentivized with subsidized spectrum bands from the regulators. In return, the providers will be asked to provide coverage to the users that are not subscribed to them so as to maintain their subsidy incentives from the government. In a simplification of the model, the providers’ perfect equilibrium strategies are found numerically, and the existence of perfect equilibrium for the government’s strategy is discussed. Our numerical results using real base station locations from two cellular providers show that through subsidization, the government can provide small service providers a fair chance to compete with the large providers, thereby avoiding monopolization in the market.