Competition Between Service Providers With Strategic Resource Allocation: Application to Network Slicing

[EN] We propose and analyze a business model for a set of operators that use the same physical network. Each operator is entitled to a share of a network operated by an Infrastructure Provider (InP) and uses network slicing mechanisms to request network resources as needed for service provision. The...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Guijarro, Luis|||0000-0001-9774-9728, Vidal Catalá, José Ramón|||0000-0002-7137-1349, Pla, Vicent|||0000-0002-0894-9494
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2021
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV)
Repositorio:RiuNet. Repositorio Institucional de la Universitat Politécnica de Valéncia
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:riunet.upv.es:10251/183701
Acceso en línea:https://riunet.upv.es/handle/10251/183701
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Resource management
Games
Network slicing
Competition
Network economics
Network slice tenants
Resource allocation
INGENIERIA TELEMATICA
Descripción
Sumario:[EN] We propose and analyze a business model for a set of operators that use the same physical network. Each operator is entitled to a share of a network operated by an Infrastructure Provider (InP) and uses network slicing mechanisms to request network resources as needed for service provision. The network operators become Network Slice Tenants (NSTs). The InP performs the resource allocation based on a vector of weights chosen selfishly by each NST. The weights distribute the NST's share of resources between its subscribers in each cell. We model this relationship as a game propose a solution for the Nash equilibrium in which each NST chooses weights equal to the product of its share by the ratio between the total number of subscribers in the cell and the total number of subscribers in the network. We characterize the proposed solution in terms of subscription ratios and fractions of subscribers, for different cell capacities and user sensitivities. The proposed solution provides the exact values for the Nash equilibrium if the cells are homogeneous in terms of normalized capacity, which is a measure of the total amount of resources available in the cell. Otherwise, if the cells are heterogeneous, it provides an accurate approximation. We quantify the deviation from the equilibrium and conclude that it is highly accurate.