Tussle between APs in a Pricing Game: A Location-Dependent Multi-AP Reverse Auction

Abstract

Many network pricing schemes have been proposed in recent years for spectrum/network service access. Most of them model the spectrum/service access problem as a cooperative game, where the spectrum/network service is assumed to be open to every user. However, few of them have considered the scenarios that the spectrum/network service is private. In this paper, we study the network pricing of private APs under the awareness of the growing popularity of private wireless access points (APs) and the increasing attention on their potential of being used to provide network service to public users. We formulate this problem as a novel network pricing game as a single-user multi-AP location-dependent reverse auction. Our theoretical study has identified the unique characteristics of the support structure of the pricing game in single AP and two-AP scenarios, and further propose the optimal strategy to reach the equilibrium under both special and general multi-AP scenarios. The the correctness, effectiveness, and economic properties of the results have been validated in both theoretical analysis and numerical study.