Co-tier Uplink Interference Management by Stackelberg Game with Pricing in Co-channel Femtocell Networks

Due to the development of the femtocell technologies, the indoor signal quality of the mobile communications is greatly improved. However, as the femtocells are widely deployed, the uplink interference from different femtocells, i.e. the co-tier uplink interference, turns out to be a critical problem to jeopardize the performance of the femtocell networks. To tackle this problem, the concept of Stackelberg game with pricing mechanism is employed. In this game, given a maximum co-tier uplink interference that the leader can tolerate, the optimum price to maximize the utility of the leader and the optimum transmission power to maximize the utility of the followers are determined by a distributed bargaining procedure. Based on the numerical results, we first show that the distributed bargaining procedure is effective and efficient in determining the optimum price and the optimum transmission power. In addition, we also conclude that the total network capacity can be improved on condition that leader can tolerate larger amount of co-tier uplink interference from the followers.