A game theory-based approach to reducing interference in dense deployments of home wireless networks

Urban residential areas are becoming increasingly dense with more and more home networks being deployed in close proximity. The paper considers a dense urban residential area where each house/unit has its own wireless access point (AP), deployed without any coordination with other such units. In this situation, it would be much better if neighbouring APs - i.e., APs that are physically close to each other - would form groups, where one member of the group would serve the terminals of all group members in addition to its own terminals, while the other access points of the group can be silent or even turned off, thus reducing interference and increasing overall Quality of Experience (QoE). The fact that participating units are deployed without any coordination makes the overall QoE vulnerable to the selfish behaviour of each unit. We propose a protocol where each unit operates in an equilibrium of a cooperative-neighbourhood game. We show using a game theoretic model that there exists a motivation for APs to enter and remain in cooperative neighbourhoods, in which interference is decreased due to the voluntary cooperation of the neighbours.