Spectrum trading for satellite communication systems with dynamic bargaining

Abstract

With the rapid development of modern satellite communications, broadband satellite services are experiencing a period of remarkable growth in both the number of users and the available bandwidth. More efficient spectrum management schemes require deeper investigation in order to meet the ever-increasing demand for broadband spectrum. In this paper, we propose a band allocation method for multibeam satellite systems by introducing a market-driven pricing mechanism. Instead of adopting static and fixed band selling, we consider a satellite network operator that utilizes the mode of price bargaining to trade the unused band with terrestrial network operators. By applying market-based mechanism to support satellite spectrum allocation, higher spectrum efficiency can be attained in order for satellite systems to meet the increasing demands for satellite bandwidth at an affordable cost. Besides, for the one-to-many bargaining case without terrestrial operator involved in, a differential spectrum pricing solution is devised to address heterogeneous users' spectrum preferences. In a typical price bargaining model, market participants (i.e., terrestrial network operators) are assumed to know exactly their needs dynamically, which is hard to achieve in near real-time; thus, our approach approximates it with a sub-optimal estimation on the network operators' benefit threshold. To be specific, we obtain the optimal pricing at every round of bargaining by predicting the overall benefits of terrestrial network operators and reaching the Nash equilibrium. Essential discussions and proofs for the pricing rationality are provided. Numerical results are given to evaluate the impact of the pricing scheme on the profits of satellite systems.