QoE-Aware Network Pricing, Power Allocation, and Admission Control

Abstract

In wireless communications, focusing on end-user satisfaction and maximizing network operators' revenue are emerging business challenges. In this paper, we investigate the price-based power allocation problem where, first, base stations (BSs) set prices by maximizing users' utility modeled by their mean opinion score (MOS). Then, each user's optimal power is set by maximizing operator revenue while ensuring the minimum data rate for each user. We propose a hybrid MOS-based pricing method to model users' utility instead of the conventional achievable rate approach. Our hybrid approach applies a machine learning algorithm to model the MOS of the call service in terms of the received signal strength indicator (RSSI). In terms of MOS and outage probability, our proposed method outperforms the rate-based pricing method and the conventional objective MOS models. In addition, we consider a joint admission control and price-based power allocation problem. When a new user requests to connect, a central controller determines whether or not to accept the new connection based on the system's MOS and average outage probability. The results demonstrate a trade-off between the number of users admitted and their level of satisfaction, providing operators with crucial knowledge about how to use their network resources more effectively.