A Volunteer Dilemma Framework for Mobile Live Streaming

Streaming service is continuously growing, which makes it the killer application of current 4G networks, as it demands more resources from mobile networks. The cellular network receives a large number of requests, most times for the same content, consuming the spectrum, energy, in addition to monetary costs inefficiently. In order to optimize spectrum utilization and reduce the induced costs, we propose a noncooperative game framework allowing to understand the user's behaviors. We observed a volunteer Dilemma-like situation when a mobile user could stream the requested video to its neighbors over a D2D link. Afterward, we provide a full description of both pure and mixed Nash equilibria (NE). Furthermore, to ensure convergence to NE points, we use linear reward-inaction and Gibbs Boltzmann learning algorithms. Finally, we show how our scheme could be exploited through extensive numerical simulation. Our framework capture the user's selfish behavior and provides a solution regarding setting and parameters allowing to reach high performance in terms of spectrum utilization, energy efficiency, and overall cost.