Text

theses

As part of radio resource management (RRM), pricing mechanisms that influence wireless device behavior and thereby drive systems to better operating points have been addressed amply in the RRM literature. These mechanisms essentially are borne out of Expected Utility Theory (EUT) based microeconomics approaches, and implemented via engineered system design, i.e., embedding these strategies in the link layer and network layer protocols that are executed by wireless devices. When a wireless service provider controls access to end-users via differentiated and hierarchical monetary pricing, then the performance of the network is directly subject to end-user decision-making that has shown to deviate from EUT. In this thesis, Prospect Theory (PT), a Nobel prize winning theory that explains real-life decision-making and its deviations from EUT behavior, is used to illuminate the end-user behavior from a cognitive psychology perspective in such a wireless network. Specifically, we conduct psychophysics experiments, to analyze how end-users evaluate the video QoS (quality of service) over wireless channels. A key aspect of PT modeling is that end-users evaluate objective probabilities with a subjective bias, often captured by a probability weighting function. Based on our human subject studies, we numerically estimate parameters for the popularly used Prelec's probability weighing function, thereby showing how end-users evaluate uncertainty in wireless QoS. The findings here provide useful pointers for designing optimal pricing and resource management algorithms in wireless networks as well as understanding the interplay between the price offerings, resource allocation by the service providers (SP) and the service choices made by end-users.

ETD_7236

M.S.

Includes bibliographical references

by Leonard T. Park

doi:10.7282/T32J6F1B

ETD graduate

The author owns the copyright to this work.