Context-Aware Group Buying in Ultra-Dense Small Cell Networks: Unity Is Strength

Ultra-dense SCNs have been regarded as a promising technology to handle the future data traffic explosion. However, the complicated relationships among large scale users and cells practically demand a cooperative grouping mechanism to account for the shortage of resources in SCNs. A group buying market mechanism provides a win-win situation and effective resource allocation in the view of economics. With additional decision information being provided, the context awareness enhances and improves the group buying mechanism. In this article, we propose a CAGB mechanism to allocate the resources in ultra-dense SCNs. The feasibility, necessity, and effectiveness of CAGB are analyzed first. Then, we introduce the group buying mechanism and some common context awareness. The relationship between context awareness and group buying is also analyzed. Some important technologies in SCNs are discussed in the view of CAGB, such as load balancing, spectrum management, and cooperative caching. Then, the graphical CFGs of CAGB are presented to match the complicated network topologies in SCNs. Two CAGB-based use cases about spectrum market and cooperative caching are presented. Finally, future research issues about context awareness, grouping mechanism, and buying mechanism are discussed.