Wi-Fi and Small Cell Network Selection Based on Alliance Game

Abstract

How to switch between Wi-Fi and small cell network effectively is an important issue for users. In this article, we propose a novel framework for cooperation among users to achieve greater revenue when they decide to switch networks. There have many articles discussing how to provide users with a way to switch between Wi-Fi and small cell networks. But they only consider non-cooperative switching between users, which is a single user switching network. Therefore, when the number of users is large or the switching cost is high, the system will consume extra costs and the performance of the system will be greatly reduced. In order to solve this problem, we propose a framework for cooperation between users to switch networks in this article, which can greatly reduce the extra loss caused by network switching and has a certain ability to bear the cost of switching networks. Specifically, without knowing the extent to which cooperative users influence the cooperative group, we design the network switching based on alliance game. When the rate obtained by some users is low in the Wi-Fi network, then the user can choose the nearby small cell network. According to the received information of users, they can choose to switch networks individually or cooperate with other users as a group to switch network. When the user chooses to switch networks in a cooperative way, the cooperative group will get a total payoff, and the system will distribute the total revenue to each user according to the proportion of each user's contribution to the group. This alliance not only improves the user's efficiency, but also reduces the congestion in the Wi-Fi network. In the simulation part of the article, we find that when the number of users increases and the switching cost is too high in one area, the benefits obtained by users cooperating to switch networks are higher than those obtained by individual users switching networks.