Downlink resource allocation and pricing for wireless networks

Abstract

This paper considers resource allocation and pricing for the downlink of a wireless network. We describe a model that applies to either a time-slotted system (e.g. Qualcomm's HDR pro- posal) or a CDMA system; the main feature of this model is that the channel quality varies across the users. We study using a pric- ing scheme for the allocation of radio resources. We show that to maximize revenue in such a system, the base station should allo- cate resources in a discriminatory manner, where different users are charged different prices based in part on their channel qual- ity. However optimally allocating resources in this way is shown to require knowledge about each user's utility function. We con- sider a suboptimal scheme which does not require knowledge of the users' utility functions, and show that this scheme is asymp- totically optimal, in the limit of large demand. Moreover such a scheme is shown to maximize social welfare. We also consider a heuristic scheme for the case of small demand, which does not require perfect knowledge about the users' utility functions. We provide numerical results that illustrate the performance of this heuristic.