Carrier Aggregation Between Operators in Next
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1 Carrier Aggregation between Operators in Next Generation Cellular Networks: A Stable Roommate Market Yong Xiao, Senior Member, IEEE, Zhu Han, Fellow, IEEE, Chau Yuen, Senior Member, IEEE, Luiz A. DaSilva, Senior Member, IEEE Abstract—This paper studies carrier aggregation between next generation of mobile technology will rely on CA to multiple mobile network operators (MNO), referred to as achieve its promised peak data rates. In a typical network, inter-operator carrier aggregation (IO-CA). In IO-CA, each a mobile network operator (MNO) may aggregate MNO can transmit on its own licensed spectrum and aggregate the spectrum licensed to other MNOs. We focus frequency resource blocks contiguously or on the case that MNOs are distributedly partitioned into non-contiguously within a single frequency band, i.e. small groups, called IO-CA pairs, each of which consists of intra-band CA, or it may aggregate resources which are two MNOs that mutually agree to share their spectrum with located in separate frequency bands. While much of the each other. We model the IO-CA pairing problem between current work on CA investigates the aggregation of MNOs as a stable roommate market and derive a condition for which a stable matching structure among all MNOs exclusive blocks of spectrum from the perspective of exists. We propose an algorithm that achieves a stable typical macrocell topologies [3]–[5], we study carrier matching if it exists. Otherwise, the algorithm results in a aggregation (CA) for cellular networks from a cognitive stable partition. For each IO-CA pair, we derive the optimal radio (CR) network perspective. transmit power for each spectrum aggregator and establish In this paper, we investigate a framework that allows a Stackelberg game model to analyze the interaction between the licensed subscribers and aggregators in the multiple MNOs to access and aggregate each other’s spectrum of each MNO. We derive the Stackelberg licensed spectrum for the purpose of providing more equilibrium of our proposed game and then develop a joint spectrum for the low power elements of their network optimization algorithm that achieves the stable matching topology. As such, we propose a system that allows for structure among MNOs as well as the optimal transmit the dynamic aggregation of spectrum resources over both powers for the aggregators and prices for the subscribers of each MNO. the MNO’s own spectrum holdings and the spectrum holdings of other MNOs. In this scenario, an MNO may Index Terms—Carrier aggregation, cellular network, operate high power macrocells in its own exclusively cognitive radio, stable roommate, stable marriage, matching, graph, game theory. licensed spectrum and may dynamically aggregate additional sub-bands, for lower power use, in another network’s licensed spectrum. We refer to this type of I. INTRODUCTION carrier aggregation as inter-operator CA (IO-CA), i.e. a With the fast growing demand for mobile data service, heterogeneous mix of users, having different rights and it becomes more and more difficult to allocate a wide and employing different transmit powers, exploits the same contiguous frequency band to support high speed data frequencies over the same area. communication for each user equipment (UE). A new From a CR network perspective [6]–[8], each MNO technology proposed in LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) [2], and its corresponding subscriber UEs, who are spectrum referred to as carrier aggregation (CA), allows network license holders, are also referred to as the primary users operators to support high data rates over large bandwidths (PU). The subscriber UEs of each MNO have priority to by aggregating frequency resources that lie in different use their own licensed spectrum, but they can also tolerate frequency bands or which may not be contiguous. The a certain interference increase caused by subscriber UEs from other MNOs. These subscriber UEs from other Some of the results in this paper have been presented at the IEEE MNOs, also referred to as secondary users (SU), can Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), Anaheim, CA, USA, access the spectrum licensed to the MNO as long as the Dec., 2012 [1]. This work is partially supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants CNS-1443917, ECCS-1405121, CNS- resulting interference is lower than the tolerable level of 1265268, and CNS-0953377, the Science Foundation Ireland under Grant the spectrum license holders, i.e. the PUs. We propose 10/IN.1/I3007, and A*Star SERC Project Grant 142 02 00043. two IO-CA approaches: a direct extension of the Y. Xiao and Z. Han are with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Houston, TX, USA 77004 (e-mails: traditional CA in LTE Advanced into the inter-operator [email protected] and [email protected]). scenario, called regular IO-CA, and a spatial spectrum C. Yuen is with Singapore University of Technology and Design, sharing-based IO-CA framework for multi-operator Singapore 487372 (email: [email protected]) L. A. DaSilva is with CONNECT, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland cellular networks, called sharing IO-CA. In both Dublin 2 (e-mail: [email protected]). approaches, each MNO and its subscriber UEs are 2 regarded as PUs in its own spectrum. Some UEs from introduce two operations: deletion and addition, for each MNO can also access and aggregate the spectrum of cellular networks. Specifically, if an MNO observes other MNOs, where they will be regarded as the SUs and increasing traffic demands in its network and would should always control their access to keep the resulting like to seek extra network capacity by forming an interference under a given tolerable level. IO-CA pair with others, it will join the roommate There are several challenges to enable IO-CA between market by using the addition operation to decide its MNOs. Specifically, in the traditional CA within the IO-CA pairing partner and still maintain the stability spectrum of one MNO, the MNO’s infrastructure (e.g., of the existing partitions. Similarly, if the service eNB in LTE Advanced) controls and manages the demand for an MNO in an IO-CA pair decreases to spectrum aggregation behavior of its UEs in a centralized a level that can be satisfied without using IO-CA, the fashion. In cellular networks with multiple MNOs, delete operation will be applied to remove this MNO however, there is no central controller and, because of from the existing IO-CA pair. We observe that a privacy and business reasons, each MNO cannot disclose stable matching structure may not always exist. We its private information (such as the payoffs and preference derive a condition for which a stable matching of its UEs and the performance improvement brought by structure exists and propose an algorithm that can IO-CA) to other MNOs. In addition, since each MNO has detect whether this condition is satisfied and, if it is, already been licensed an exclusive spectrum band and achieves this matching structure. does not have to always rely on IO-CA to achieve the 2) Price Adjustment Problem: in this problem, each basic quality-of-service (QoS) for its subscriber UEs, each MNO charges a price to the subscriber UEs from MNO will only allow its spectrum to be aggregated by other MNOs that aggregate its spectrum. We observe others when it has an incentive to do so. that for each MNO, charging a high price to the One approach that has been proposed in the existing aggregators will deter the potential MNOs that are literature is for all the operators to merge their licensed willing to form an IO-CA pair. On the other hand, spectrum to form a common spectrum pool [9]–[12]. charging a low price will decrease the profit and However, the spectrum pooling system generally requires increase possible interference between pairing all operators to give up their exclusive use of spectrum. In MNOs. We hence propose a Stackelberg game-based addition, the coordination and competition for the hierarchical framework to investigate the case where spectrum usage among all the operators and their one MNO and its subscriber UEs are the leaders in corresponding UEs does not always lead to an efficient their own licensed spectrum, with the ability to set solution, especially when the size of the coverage area prices for secondary use of the spectrum, and and the number of operators and UEs becomes large [12]. subscriber UEs, also called the aggregators, of other A tradeoff between spectrum pooling and intra-operator MNOs are the followers who can optimize their CA can be achieved by partitioning all MNOs into small performance under the prices imposed by the leaders. groups, each of which consisting of a limited number of 3) Power Control Problem: in this problem, each MNOs that are willing to coordinate and share their subscriber UE using sharing IO-CA can optimize its spectrum with each other. However, as observed in [8], transmit power to further improve its performance there may not always exist a stable coalition formation without causing intolerably high interference to the structure in a distributed multi-agent system and even if it subscriber UEs of the primary operator. exists, there is still a lack of an effective algorithm to 4) Joint Optimization problem: we consider the joint allow all MNOs to distributedly negotiate and form this optimization of the above three problems and structure. That is, finding a coalition formation structure develop a distributed algorithm to jointly optimize in a distributed multi-agent system has been proved to be the resulting decisions. NP-hard [13], [14]. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that In this paper, we study the joint optimization for an IO- studies the optimization of IO-CA in cellular networks, CA-based cellular network with multiple MNOs.