Blockchain secured auction-based user offloading in heterogeneous wireless networks

© 2012 IEEE. This letter presents a secure user offloading mechanism in heterogeneous wireless networks (HWNs), where a macrocell base station (MBS) offloads its users to small cell access points (SCAs) using Vickrey auction. Additionally, a user-in-the-loop (UIL) strategy is exploited to encourage the unserved users to move to desired locations for connections. As the participants in the conventional auction-based trading may collude or take selfish actions, we employ Ethereum framework for trustless, secure and distributed auctioning. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the advantages of the proposed user offloading methodology. The security aspects of the blockchain framework are also discussed.