Analysis of Spatial and Economical Effects in Communication Networks (Analyse des effets spatiaux et aspects économiques dans les réseaux de communications)

In this thesis we analyze the performance of communication networks using game theoretic approaches. The thesis is in two parts. The first part studies the performance of Ad hoc, cellular and transportation networks taking into consideration spatial effects. The second part studies economic issues in the communication networks related to the ‘net neutrality’ regulations. Here we study price competition and revenue sharing mechanisms between the network service providers. In the first part, we use Medium Access Control (MAC) game and Jamming game models to study the performance of a Mobile Ad hoc NETwork (MANET), and routing games to study the performance of a transportation network. In the cellular networks, we study the effect of reducing the spatial density of base stations on the amount of radiation to human body (green networking). We use tools from stochastic geometry to model spatial characters. We begin with the study of MAC game in a MANET where the nodes are noncooperative, and their locations form a Poisson point process. The nodes use Aloha protocol to access the channel, and choose their Medium Access Probability (MAP) such that it optimizes their utility. The utility of each node is defined as weighted difference between a performance metric (expected goodput or expected delay) and transmission costs. We first consider a scenario in which nodes can be priced for channel access. We show that by using a simple (linear) pricing mechanism and setting the price ‘appropriately’, the selfish behavior of the nodes can be used to achieve the same performance as social optima at equilibrium. In the case where channel access is free, we consider transmission energy costs and analyze the Price of Anarchy (PoA). For the game with goodput based utility, we show that the PoA is infinite at the price that achieves the global optimal goodput. We then study the performance of MANET in the presence of a Jammer while all the nodes cooperate by using a MAP that is assigned by a network an Operator. The objective of the Jammer is to degrade the spatial performance of the MANET by causing interference, whereas the objective of the Operator is to set a MAP to optimize it. We model the interaction between the Jammer and the Operator taking into account the transmission energy costs. We transform the resulting non zero sum game into a zero sum game by constructing an anti-potential, and show that for a given Jammer’s transmission cost, if the nodes transmit at a power higher than certain threshold, then the Jammer has no incentive to jam, i.e., the nodes can operate as if there is no Jammer.