Regulating Freeriding in Inter-Operator Spectrum Sharing

Existing spectrum regulation policies are based on static spectrum allocations, and sharing of the spectrum bands is only allowed on a secondary basis when the primary user is idle. Taking spectrum sharing between providers to a "primary" level, where sharing could happen among users of primary providers, involves two challenges. First, new regulatory approaches must be embraced to incentivize and encourage providers to share their spectrum resources with customers of other providers. Second, freeriding in such ubiquitously shared markets must be minimized, as a small provider may not be motivated in investing to compete with other providers since its users may already being served by other strong providers. For the former, we consider a government subsidy-based spectrum sharing (SBSS) model where providers are explicitly incentivized. For the latter, we focus on minimizing freeriding in SBSS markets where sharing is pervasive and at the primary level. We introduce a game-theoretic model of freeriding under SBSS markets and use the model to explore operational regimes with minimal freeriding.