This work studies the revenue-maximizing auction of a single block of spectrum that can be awarded either for exclusive licensed use by one operator or reserved for unlicensed use. A number of operators bid for exclusive licensed use and a group of non-colluding agents bid to keep the spectrum unlicensed. The revenue of this auction is compared to that of a Vickrey-Clarke-Groves (VCG) auction a...

In the past two decades, telecommunications has turned into a highly competitive industry where companies are competing to buy valuable spectrum. Following the successful Personal Communications Services (PCS) Auction conducted by the US Federal Communications Commission in 1994, auctions have replaced traditional ways of allocating valuable radio spectrum such as comparative hearings (sometime...

We study auction mechanisms for sharing spectrum among a group of users, subject to a constraint on the interference temperature at a measurement point. The users access the channel using spread spectrum signaling and so interfere with each other. Each user receives a utility that is a function of the received signal-to-interference plus noise ratio. We propose two auction mechanisms for alloca...

In lecture 17, we discussed spectrum allocation. In the US, the FCC has used various methods to allocate spectrum, a finite resource that has now been fully allocated. That means that there is no spectrum left for newer technologies like mobile phones, so the FCC must reallocate. Currently, the FCC is implementing a mechanism called an incentive auction, which involves a reverse auction and a f...

This paper analyzes U.S. PCS spectrum auctions in several key ways. First, a history of how the FCC came to the decision to auction spectrum rather than assign it using a different method is provided. Then, the specific rules and procedures used in the auctions are explained and the strengths and flaws of each significant auction trait are exposed. Auctions in the U.S. are compared to 3G auctio...

Spectrum auction is considered a suitable approach to efficiently allocate spectrum among unlicensed users. In a typical spectrum auction, Secondary Users (SUs) bid to buy spectrum bands from a Primary Owner (PO) who acts as the auctioneer. In this paper, unlike most existing auction mechanisms, spectrum auctions are studied in a realistic setting where channels have different qualities, and SU...

In this paper, we consider the problem of dynamic spectrum allocation in cognitive radio (CR) networks and propose a new sealed-bid auction framework to address the spectrum allocation problem when the spectrum is not available with certainty. In our model, we assume that the moderator plays the dual role of being a fusion center (FC) for spectrum sensing and an auctioneer for spectrum allocati...

The demand for spectrum resources has increased in the past decade due to the flourishing wireless industry worldwide. This change requires Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) to establish a transparent, fair and efficient spectrum allocation process that will enable it to select an optimal set of licensees to realize efficient spectrum use. This thesis proposes an auc...