Rate-Based Pricing Framework in Hybrid Access Femtocell Networks

In femtocell networks, it is a challenge to motivate femtocell access points (FAPs) to adopt hybrid access policy and provide services to accessed macrocell user equipments (MUEs) in access control mechanism investigation. In this letter, we propose an incentive framework within which the macrocell base station (MBS) provides profit to femtocells by pricing accessed MUEs´ transmission rates guaranteed by FAPs. A Stackelberg game is formulated to maximize the utility functions of both the MBS and FAPs. The Stackelberg equilibrium (SE) for the proposed game is investigated and the best strategies for both tiers are obtained. Numerical results show that utility functions of FAPs can be improved significantly, which provides strong motivation for FAPs to adopt hybrid access and implement the proposed framework.