Orthogonality-Centric Pricing for Wireless Multimedia Multiple Access Networks

Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA) is one of the promising solutions for next-generation wireless multimedia services to mitigate traffic congestion and reduce latency. Orthogonal Multiple Access (OMA) on the other hand has been used over the years to transmit content wirelessly. The merits offered by OMA would make it co-exist along with NOMA in the upcoming years. The key idea of this paper is to leverage Uber/Lyft ride-share philosophy to design the wireless access pricing model to be "orthogonality-centric"; being aware of the shared NOMA and exclusive OMA access price differences in wireless networks. The efficacy of the developed pricing model is then studied on a hybrid network which supports both NOMA and OMA resource blocks. The utility definitions for both the base station and the mobile user are mathematically modeled and the profit maximization interplay between the two parties is analyzed using game theoretic methods. An algorithm to derive Nash Equilibrium solution is presented. The simulations showcase the efficacy of the developed orthogonality driven pricing framework developed in this paper. Furthermore, the results indicate that the non-uniform orthogonality-centric pricing yields better utilities for both the base station and the end user.