Pricing-based power allocation in wireless network virtualization: A game approach

Since wireless network virtualization (WNV) enables physical resources abstraction and sharing, the overall resources inefficiency can be reduced dramatically. This paper investigates a pricing-based energy efficient (EE) optimization problem for orthogonal frequency-division multiple Access (OFDMA) WNV. A typical WNV environment consists of an infrastructure provider (InP), virtual network operators (VNOs) and end users. The objective of this paper is to maximize VNOs' EE in bits per joule unit. This is achieved by allocating each VNO certain amount of power. The problem is formulated as a commercial market competition based on a pricing function. A non-cooperative game is applied and a power allocation algorithm is developed to search the Nash equilibrium which is the solution of this game. The Nash equilibrium indicates the best strategy that each VNO can employ. The performances of the proposed algorithm are obtained in a frequency selective fading environment. Evaluation results reveal the VNO adaptation of power sharing strategies and also shows the inefficiency of the Nash equilibrium.