HEAD: A hybrid spectrum trading framework for QoS-aware secondary users

Secondary spectrum trading is an important approach to increase spectrum utilization. According to the length of duration of spectrum usage, it can be categorized into long-term leasing and short-term rental. Existing works have largely focused on one pricing scheme only. In this paper, we propose a new spectrum trading framework called HEAD for a hybrid market between spectrum owner (SO) and secondary users (SU). The entire time span is divided into multiple periods of equal length. In the long-term leasing, SUs pay a subscription fee to obtain spectrum in all future periods. In the short-term rental, SUs contend for channel usages of one period via auction. We consider the users' QoS requirements and propose statistical approximation methods to estimate the auction outcome and analyze how SO optimizes revenue. In addition, we examine the SUs' strategic choices and the equilibrium. The benefits of the proposed hybrid pricing framework are evaluated and verified through extensive simulations.