Base Station Association Game in Multi-Cell Wireless Networks

The authors consider a multi-cell wireless network with a large number of users. Each user selfishly chooses the Base Station (BS) that gives it the best throughput (utility), and each BS allocates its resource by some simple scheduling policy. First they consider two cases: BS allocates the same time to its users; BS allocates the same throughput to its users. It turns out that, combined with users' selfish behavior, case results in a single Nash Equilibrium (NE), which achieves system-wide Proportional Fairness. On the other hand, case results in many possible Nash Equilibria, some of which are very inefficient. Next, they extend to the case where the users have general concave utility functions.