Overselling Spectrum Slices in Radio Access Networks (RANs): An Optimal Auction Design Perspective

This paper presents the design of a novel optimal auction mechanism that enables a Mobile Network Operator (MNO) to intelligently oversell slices of its spectrum to a carefully chosen set of Wireless Tenants (WTs). The paper uses Queueing theory to model and analyze the Quality of Service (QoS) experienced by WTs under overselling, and integrates the theory with auction theory to ensure that the developed mechanism duly satisfies WTs’ QoS requirements. It is shown that, under inherent uncertainties associated with communication processes, our overselling methodology enhances important performance criteria, such as the MNO’s utility and spectrum utilization, beyond what is permitted by traditional approaches that do not allow overselling. Insights into the number of frequencies that an MNO should slice its spectrum into have been provided. Numerous simulation results are presented which show the performance advantages of our proposed mechanism.