Strategic Network Infrastructure Sharing through Backup Reservation in a Competitive Environment
Strategic Network Infrastructure Sharing through Backup Reservation in a Competitive Environment
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DOI：
10.1109/sahcn.2019.8824849
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发表时间：
2019-06
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Jing Hou;Li Sun;Tao Shu;Yong Xiao;M. Krunz
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Jing Hou;Li Sun;Tao Shu;Yong Xiao;M. Krunz
在向5G过渡的过程中，高昂的基础设施成本、快速推出新服务的需求以及频繁的技术/系统升级促使无线运营商考虑采用经济高效的网络基础设施共享（NIS），甚至在竞争对手之间，以获得技术和市场准入。为了与竞争对手合作，NIS 是一项讨价还价的交易，其条款和条件需要仔细确定，以保证在不确定的市场中的盈利能力。在这项工作中，我们提出了一种战略 NIS 框架，用于资源有限和需求不确定的小型/本地网络运营商与具有潜在冗余容量的足智多谋的运营商之间的合同备份预留。备份预留协议要求本地运营商（如运营商A）每隔固定时间向资源拥有运营商（如运营商B）支付固定的预留费用。作为回报，运营商 B 保证其资源（例如频谱）的可用性达到预定水平。这样，就可以保留一定的备份资源容量，以供将来在高流量需求时使用。我们根据最优预留价格和资源预留数量来描述运营商之间的讨价还价，而不考虑运营商之间的市场份额竞争。探讨了竞争性运营商合作的条件。还研究了竞争强度、冗余容量和需求不确定性对备份预留下性能的影响。我们的研究表明，通过备份预留的NIS不仅可以为运营商带来更高的资源利用率和利润，还可以为最终用户带来更高的服务水平。我们还发现，在某些条件下，运营商 B 会与运营商 A 共享其资源，甚至冒着影响自己用户的风险，而竞争强度对共享决策的影响高度依赖于潜在冗余容量的大小。
In transitioning to 5G, the high infrastructure cost, the need for fast rollout of new services, and the frequent technology/system upgrades triggered wireless operators to consider adopting the cost-effective network infrastructure sharing (NIS), even among competitors, to gain technology and market access. To collaborate with competitors, NIS is a bargain whose terms and conditions need to be carefully determined to guarantee profitability in a market with uncertainties. In this work, we propose a strategic NIS framework for contractual backup reservation between a small/local network operator of limited resources and uncertain demands, and one resourceful operator with potentially redundant capacity. The backup reservation agreement requires the local operator (say, operator A) to pay a fixed reservation fee to the resource-owning operator (say, operator B) at fixed time intervals. In return, the operator B guarantees availability of its resource (e.g., spectrum) up to a predetermined level. In such a way, a certain amount of backup resource capacity is reserved for future use under high traffic demand. We characterize the bargaining between the operators in terms of the optimal reservation prices and resource reservation quantities w/o considerations of the competitions between operators in market share. The conditions under which the competitive operators will cooperate are explored. The impacts of competition intensity, redundant capacity, and demand uncertainty on performance under backup reservation are also investigated. Our study shows that NIS through backup reservation leads to both higher resource utilization and profits for operators, as well as higher service levels for end users. We also find that, under certain conditions, operator B will share its resources with operator A even at the risk of impinging on its own users, and the impact of competition intensity on the sharing decisions is highly dependent on the amount of potential redundant capacity.