Coordination games over Collision Channels

We consider competition between non-cooperative mobiles over several independent collision multiple-access channels or more generally, over interference channels. A mobile selects one of the channels for transmission; if the same channel is chosen simultaneously by more than a single mobile then a collision occurs and the colliding packets are lost. Policies based on assigning each independent channel to another mobile turn out to constitute efficient equilibria. But they request some synchronization and coordination which may not be possible. We identify other mixed equilibria that do not request synchronization but exhibit innefficiency. Moreover, we show that a Braess type paradox occurs in which the availability of more resources results in poorer performance to all mobiles. We extend the model to investigate the influence of capture phenomena.