A Signaling-Based Incentive Mechanism for Device-to-Device Content Sharing in Cellular Networks

In this letter, we model the device-to-device (D2D) content sharing problem as a labor market where the base station (BS) acts as the principal and content providers serve as agents. A signaling-based content-sharing incentive (SCSI) mechanism is designed to encourage candidate content providers to participate in content sharing, and the optimal strategy for each content provider is derived to maximize their utility (monetary profit) while guaranteeing a non-negative utility for the BS. Simulation results show that the proposed SCSI mechanism can increase the content provider's utility and participating enthusiasm in D2D content sharing.