An inventory model-based spectrum pooling for wireless service provider and unlicensed users

In order to comply with more opportunistic and transient service requirements, many research literatures have paid attention to an approach called spectrum pooling. If we imagine a scenario in which wireless service providers (WSPs) manage the spectrum pool, the radio spectrum itself will be traded as done in a market-based scenario, and moreover, every WSP will likely require new strategies in order to make more profits under such dynamic service requirements. Up to now, most researches have concentrated on investigating the inter-WSP strategies such as market equilibrium under the consideration of noncooperative or cooperative WSPs. In this paper, we direct our attentions to an intra-WSP strategy: a WSP coordinates the spectrum order in order to minimize its cost. To this end, we deploy a probabilistic inventory model that helps WSPs to determine economic order quantity and reorder point yielding minimum total expected cost. The total cost is composed of ordering cost, holding cost, and stockout cost. We believe that this model will be the first investigation of intra-WSP strategy that manages and estimates economic aspects of the spectrum pooling. 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.