Millimeter-Wave Radio Access Network Sharing: A Market-Based Cooperative Bargaining Perspective

This paper provides a bargaining game-based bandwidth allocation scheme in multi-operator shared millimeter-wave (mmWave) radio access network (RAN). We consider mobile network operators (MNOs) that mutually share their mmWave base stations (BSs) to expand coverage such that the subscribers of one MNO can be associated with the mmWave BSs of other MNOs. Since MNOs are also competitive in nature, there is a necessity for MNOs to negotiate the amount of bandwidth to be allocated to the users of each other. We first evaluate how the amount of allocated bandwidth enhances the success probability both theoretically and through simulations. Then, by using the evolutionary game theory to model the subscription of users, the feasible region of bandwidth is mapped to the feasible region of market state, enabling the MNOs to negotiate based the evolution of the market state. The Nash bargaining solution yields an allocation scheme that maximizes the product of MNOs' increments in the market share.