Towards a market mechanism for heterogeneous secondary spectrum usage: An evolutionary approach

Most research assume a clean slate approach towards the emergence of secondary spectrum markets. Additionally markets are typically designed with an underlying assumption of participating actors being homogeneous (i.e. using similar wireless architecture). In contrast with above we take an evolutionary approach when designing our market mechanism towards heterogeneous secondary usage of the radio spectrum. The evolution of trading markets is reflected in the incremental steps used in our research, i.e. starting from Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11) capacity markets, followed by super Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11af) capacity markets and finally TV White Spaces (TVWS) spectrum leasing markets. We study the market mechanisms across a heterogeneous set of actors involving both wide area (WA) and local area (LA) operators and focus on creating a win-win scenario for all the participating entities. We make use of literature review and Value Network Configuration (VNC) methodology for illustrating the design of market mechanism and further evaluate the designed mechanism using Agent Based Modeling (ABM). Based on our simulation results we observe that a generic trade-off exist between the length of lease time, trade facilitation cost and the extent of trading activity within the markets. We also observe that there exists an optimal range of lease time for which all the market players find themselves in economically favourable situation. We compare super Wi-Fi capacity markets and TVWS spectrum leasing markets over performance of MOs and TV broadcasters to conclude that a local area strategy seems better suited and more efficient to be adopted for TVWS usage.