Price-Based Resource Allocation for Spectrum-Sharing Femtocell Networks: A Stackelberg Game Approach

This paper investigates price-based resource allocation strategies for the uplink transmission of a spectrum-sharing femtocell network, in which a central macrocell is underlaid with distributed femtocells, all operating over the same frequency band as the macrocell. Assuming that the macrocell base station(MBS) protects itself by pricing the interference from the femtocell users, a Stackelberg game is formulated to study the joint utility maximization of the macrocell and the femtocells subject to a maximum tolerable interference power constraint at the MBS. In particular, two pricing schemes: uniform pricing and non-uniform pricing, are investigated. Then, the Stackelberg equilibriums for the proposed games are studied, and the relationship between the two pricing schemes is examined. It is shown that the nonuniform pricing scheme maximizes the revenue of the MBS, while the uniform pricing scheme maximizes the sum-rate of the femtocell users.