Strategic Resource Management in 5G Network Slicing

Network Slicing is one of the essential concepts that has been introduced in 5G networks design to support demand expressed by next generation services. Network slicing will also bring new business opportunities for service providers (SPs) and virtual network operators, allowing them to run their virtual, independent business operations on shared physical infrastructure. We consider a marketplace where service providers (SPs) i.e., slice tenants lease the resources from an infrastructure provider (InP) through a network slicing mechanism. They compete to offer a certain communication service to end-users. We show that the competition between SPs can be model using the multi-resource Tullock contest (TC) framework, where SPs exert effort by expending costly resource to attract users. We study the competition between the SPs under a static and dynamic resource sharing scheme. In a dynamic resource sharing scheme, SPs are pre-assigned with fixed shares (budgets) of infrastructure, and they are allowed to redistribute their shares and customise their allocation to maximise their profit. The decision problem of SPs is analysed using non-cooperative game theory, and it is shown that the resultant game admits a unique Nash Equilibrium (NE). Furthermore, a distributed reinforcement algorithm is proposed that allows each SP to reach the game’s unique Nash equilibrium. Finally, simulations results are conducted to analyse the interaction between market players and the economic efficacy of the network sharing mechanism.