User-centric compensation framework with universal pricing for hybrid femtocell networks

Abstract

Femtocells deployed in the Macrocell network provide better indoor coverage to the user equipments (UEs) with low power consumption and maintenance cost from the wireless system vendor. The industrial vendors show great interest in the access mode, called the hybrid access, in which the macrocell UEs (MUEs) can be served by the nearby Femtocell Access Point (FAP). By adopting hybrid access in the femtocell, the system energy efficiency is improved due to the short distance between the FAP and MUEs while at the same time, the quality-of-service (QoS) requirements are better guaranteed. However, both the Macrocell base station (MBS) and the FAP are rational and selfish, who maximize their own utility. The framework to successively apply the hybrid access in femtocell and fulfill the QoS requirement of each UE is of great importance. In this paper, we propose a compensation framework with universal nonlinear pricing, which serves to optimize the power allocation in uplink transmission, to motivate the hybrid access. The optimal compensation price and the number of acceptable MUEs are provided, where the utility of the MBS and FAP are maximized, respectively.