NeTS: Small: Collaborative Research: Network Economics for Secondary Spectrum Ecosystems

新兴的认知无线电(CR)技术为无线服务业务提供了新的解决方案。具备认知无线电能力的服务供应商可按需从二级频谱市场购买频谱，以避免支付巨额频谱牌照费，大大降低了进入无线业务的门槛。因此，可以预见的是，小型和本地二级无线服务提供商(SSP)将蓬勃发展，将无线业务从由少数几家大型运营商主导的业务转变为竞争激烈得多的市场。现有的二次频谱市场模型主要考虑由大的SSP组成的市场，假设每个SSP都有足够的二次无线资源和覆盖独立服务的终端用户。然而，在实践中，这些模型不可避免地将大量的小型和本地SSP排除在市场之外，这些SSP没有足够的资源和覆盖来独立满足最终用户的需求(例如，对于高速率接入或长距离路由)，导致市场竞争力降低，并从此损害市场效率。该项目将研究一种新颖的竞争与协作频谱市场框架，在该框架下，小型和本地SSP将合作提供服务，以保持更大的市场份额、更好的盈利能力、更强的市场竞争力和更高的市场效率。该项目如果成功，将极大地促进我们对由主要频谱销售商、SSP、终端用户和人类组成的二级频谱生态系统的网络经济学的理解，并将有助于在现实世界中部署经济上可行和可持续的频谱市场。(1)对于短期服务，假设市场中的每个参与者都是完全理性的，二级频谱市场首先被建模为现货市场。提出了一个真实的采购拍卖模型，用于研究在不同市场条件下的最优市场机制及其策略验证。(2)对于长期服务，该项目将研究期货市场的潜力和影响，利用期权定价和套期保值等方法，利用时间域的服务可预测性来提高市场效率。(3)发布理性玩家假设，运用行为经济学的方法研究非理性因素和人为因素对市场效率的影响。该项目还将执行一项全面的教育计划，以扩大其影响，包括将研究与本科生和研究生教育结合起来，向少数群体和代表性不足的学生招聘和外展，以及向普通公众有效地传播和外展。

The emerging cognitive radio (CR) technology provides new solutions to the wireless service business. A CR-capable service provider can acquire spectrum on demand from the secondary spectrum market to avoid paying the huge spectrum licensing fees, significantly lowering the threshold of entry to the wireless business. As a result, it is foreseeable that small and local secondary wireless service providers (SSPs) will flourish, transforming the wireless business from one dictated by few giant carriers to a much more competitive marketplace. Existing secondary spectrum market models mainly consider a market comprised by big SSPs, where every SSP is assumed to have sufficient secondary radio resource and coverage to independently service end users. In practice, however, these models inevitably exclude the large number of small and local SSPs that do not have enough resource and coverage to independently satisfy the demand of end users (e.g., for high-rate access or long-range routing) from the market, leading to reduced market competitiveness, and henceforth compromised market efficiency. This project will investigate a novel competition-and-collaboration spectrum market framework, whereby small and local SSPs will collaborate in providing service to retain more market shares, better profitability, stronger market competitiveness, and higher market efficiency. This project, if successful, will significantly advance our understanding on the network economics of the secondary spectrum ecosystem comprised by primary spectrum sellers, SSPs, end users, and human, and will contribute to the real-world deployment of economically feasible and sustainable spectrum market.The proposed research will follow three thrusts. (1) For short-term services, assuming perfect rationality for every player in the market, the secondary spectrum market is first modeled as a spot market. A truthful procurement auction model is proposed to study the optimal market mechanisms and their strategy proofness under a variety of market conditions. (2) For long-term services, the project will study the potential and implication of the futures market, in which service predictability in the time domain is exploited to improve market efficiency, using methods such as option pricing and hedging. (3) The rational-player assumption is released and the project will study the impact of irrationality and human factors on market efficiency using methods from Behavioral Economics. This project will also carry out a comprehensive educational plan to broaden its impact, including integrating research with undergraduate and graduate education, recruiting and outreaching to minority and under-represented students, and efficient dissemination and outreaching to the general public.