Talk: Economic Thinking of Communication
Networks
Today’s communication networks are
highly complex, carry heterogeneous traffic in diverse environments,
and are often owned by multiple profit-making entities. To successfully
maintain, optimize, and upgrade such large distributed networks, it is
important to design new economic incentive mechanisms as well as
develop new technologies. The market deregulation of the
telecommunication industry in many countries makes such economic
consideration even more urgent, as there are often conflicting goals
between the regulators and the commercial operators.
We will first illustrate how economics can
help us better understand the networking industry reality, predict user
behaviors, envision new network services, and provide policy
recommendations. Then we will focus on the case study of incentive
mechanisms for user-provided networks (UPNs). UPNs is a new
communication paradigm, which enables users to improve their
communications experiences by exploiting the diverse communication
needs and resources of other users. The success of UPNs, however,
relies on carefully designed incentive mechanisms that effectively
encourage users’ voluntary participations and cooperations. We
will introduce a new paradigm of cooperative video streaming based on
the concept of UPN, where mobile users crowdsource their Internet
connectivities and adaptively choose video downloading sequences and
streaming qualities. We will introduce a multi-dimensional auction
framework, which effectively incentivizes users to cooperate in a
distributed fashion.
Bio:
Jianwei Huang is an IEEE Fellow, a
Distinguished Lecturer of IEEE Communications Society, and a Clarivate
Analytics Highly Cited Researcher in Computer Science. He is a
Professor and Director of the Network Communications and Economics Lab (ncel.ie.cuhk.edu.hk),
in the Department of Information Engineering at the Chinese University
of Hong Kong. He received Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 2005,
and worked as a Postdoc Research Associate at Princeton University
during 2005-2007. His main research interests are in the area of
network economics and games, with applications in wireless
communications, networking, and smart grid.
Dr. Huang is the co-author of 9 Best Paper
Awards, including IEEE Marconi Prize Paper Award in Wireless
Communications in 2011, the IEEE Communications Society Young
Professional Best Paper Award in 2017, and Best (Student) Paper Awards
from IEEE WiOpt 2015/2014/2013, IEEE SmartGridComm 2012, WiCON 2011,
IEEE GLOBECOM 2010, and APCC 2009. He has co-authored six books:
"Wireless Network Pricing," "Economics of Database-Assisted Spectrum
Sharing," "Monotonic Optimization in Communication and Networking
Systems," "Cognitive Mobile Virtual Network Operator Games," "Social
Cognitive Radio Networks," and "Radio Resource Management for Mobile
Traffic Offloading in Heterogeneous Cellular Networks." He received the
CUHK Young Researcher Award in 2014 and IEEE ComSoc Asia-Pacific
Outstanding Young Researcher Award in 2009.
Dr. Huang has served as an Editor of IEEE
Transactions on Mobile Computing, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking,
Editor of IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering, Editor
of IEEE Transactions on Cognitive Communications and Networking, Editor
of IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, Editor of IEEE Journal
on Selected Areas in Communications - Cognitive Radio Series, Editor
and Associate Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Communications Society Technology
News. He has served as a Guest Editor of IEEE Journal on Selected Areas
in Communications, IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, IEEE Network, and
IEEE Communications Magazine. He also serves as a Co-Series-Editor of
Wiley Information and Communication Technology Series, an Area Editor
of Springer Encyclopedia of Wireless Networks, and a Section Editor for
Springer Handbook of Cognitive Radio.
Dr. Huang has served as Chair of IEEE
Communications Society Cognitive Network Technical Committee, Chair of
IEEE Communications Society Multimedia Communications Technical
Committee, and a Steering Committee Member of IEEE Transactions on
Multimedia. He has served as or will serve the General/TPC/Symposium
Co-Chairs of IEEE ICC 2020, NetGCoop 2018/2014, IEEE WiOpt
2018/2017/2012, IEEE SDP 2017/2016/2015, IEEE ICCC 2015/2012, IEEE
SmartGridComm 2014, IEEE GLOBECOM 2017/2013/2010, IWCMC 2010, and
GameNets 2009. He is the recipient of IEEE ComSoc Multimedia
Communications Technical Committee Distinguished Service Award in 2015
and IEEE GLOBECOM Outstanding Service Award in 2010.
Further
information contact: Ron -->
kane @ ieee.org, walrand@berkeley.edu
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------