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

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY

Investigators

Abstract

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.