EARS: Enabling local spectrum markets for enhanced access and flexible service

如今，特许频谱服务是由几家在全国范围内开展业务的大型提供商提供的，市场竞争仅在全国范围内实现。典型的提供商-客户合同期限相对较长，很少有标准合同选择，这不会为客户带来最佳价值实现。此外，移动用户经常被限制使用远距离通信到提供商的基站，即使它们位于其他用户的接入点范围内，这些接入点目前负载不足，但已关闭供公众使用。首先，研究了区域频谱批发市场的可行性，以及二级牌照和本地化运营的区域频谱提供商应该扮演的角色。其次，它研究了灵活的提供商-客户频谱服务合同的设计和定价，使合同双方能够在各自期望的风险-回报折衷点上运营。第三，这个项目研究了接入、安全和激励机制的设计问题，使用户能够作为微提供商，或在他们的“社区”中与其他人共享他们的频谱合同。这些探索运用了投资分析、金融工程、风险管理、控制和优化的经济/商业理论，以及网络博弈理论，以及小规模的用户调查和模拟实验。项目的更广泛目标是促进更分层的市场结构，从而增加频谱服务承包业务的区域参与者数量，并让用户参与向他人提供频谱服务。更多的本地竞争将使频谱使用的价格更具竞争力，更好的本地扩展和覆盖，从而为用户提供更好的接入。用户之间共享未使用的频谱将实现更好的频谱接入和费率，并为共享未使用频谱的用户带来收入。该项目探索的频谱服务创新，加上地区提供商的存在，将使用户能够拥有比目前更灵活的条款和条件的个性化频谱合同。

Licensed spectrum services today are offered by a few large providers with a national presence, and market competition is realized only at the national scale. Typical provider-customer contracts are relatively long term with few standard contract choices, which does not lead to the best value realization for the customer. Furthermore, mobile users are often restricted to using long range communication to the provider's base stations, even when they are in the range of access points of other users that are currently under-loaded but closed for public use.This project attempts to address those limitations. Firstly, it studies the viability of regional wholesale spectrum markets, and the role that should be played by regional spectrum providers with secondary licenses and localized operation. Secondly, it investigates the design and pricing of flexible provider-customer spectrum service contracts that would enable both contracting parties to operate at their desired risk-return tradeoff points. Thirdly, this project studies access, security and incentive mechanism design questions that can enable users to serve as micro-providers, or share their spectrum contracts with others in their "community". These explorations are conducted using economic/business theories of investment analysis, financial engineering, risk management, control and optimization, and network game theory, as well as small-scale user surveys and simulation experiments.The broader goal of the project is to facilitate a more layered market structure that will increase the number of regional players in the spectrum service contracting business, and also involve the users in providing spectrum services to others. More local competition would allow more competitive prices for spectrum usage, better local expansion and coverage, and therefore better access for users. Sharing of unused spectrum by users with each other would enable better spectrum access and rates, and revenue to users who share their unused spectrum. Spectrum service innovations that this project explores, along with presence of regional providers, would allow users to have individualized spectrum contracts with more flexible terms and conditions than what exist today.