Network and Financial Aspects of Traffic Offloading with Small Cell as a Service

The densification of mobile networks with small cells (SCs) is one promising solution to address the explosive increase in data traffic. Due to their financial implementation requirements, which could not be met by mobile service providers (MSPs), the emergence of third parties that deploy SC networks creates new business opportunities. In this paper, we study the Small Cell as a Service (SCaaS) business model, where MSPs lease the SC infrastructure from a small-cell operator (SCO) to offload their traffic. In SCaaS, the SCO requires a licensed spectrum for the SC operation, which must be provided by MSPs. We introduce a proportional fair auction scheme for the SC capacity distribution and the corresponding transactions. We examine the MSPs' profit and throughput for the dedicated and co-channel spectrum deployments, various SC deployments, and different levels of MSP competition in the auctions. We propose a learning mechanism that improves the bidders' strategies for realistic cases without information in the traffic and the auctions. Extensive simulations give insight into SCaaS's techno-economic aspects, the MSPs' strategies, and their impact on the system. Finally, our results prove our mechanism's efficiency, which performs similarly to the optimal social welfare-maximization optimal results.© 2018 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works