Non-cooperative dynamic spectrum access for CDMA networks

Recent studies indicate the presence of a significant amount of idle licensed spectrum, in different time periods and geographic locations. Prompted by the latest regulatory changes and radio technology advances, dynamic spectrum access is becoming increasingly attractive, for alleviating the spectrum scarcity problem in the unlicensed bands. We study the dynamic spectrum access in a CDMA environment. We assume that users selfishly switch from one frequency band to another, so as to maximize their individual benefit, and model the studied problem as a non-cooperative game. We propose a probabilistic, distributed strategy with which users might share the available resources to satisfy their quality of service requirements, and minimize their transmitted power. The comparison of the proposed strategy against other alternative strategies shows that it combines fast convergence, efficiency and stability, while its simplicity makes it practical for a real network.