POMDP game framework for service providers inciting mobile users

The trend today is to access Internet through mobile devices, and people start using smartphones more than computers. This kind of services requires frequent updates through small messages from editors like in social networks. Although the use of such applications is subject to fees and consumes energy from limited batteries of smartphones. If a user activates his mobile device and has a useful contact opportunity with an access point, an update is received at the expense of monetary and energy costs. Thus, users face a tradeoff between such costs and their utilities. The goal of this paper is to show how a user can cope with such a tradeoff, by deriving a threshold policies. We consider the multi-user case, where each user try to maximize its reward based on a bonus given by the provider. We study the optimal policy in the Nash equilibrium. An optimal policy consists of deciding, based on the age of the last message received and the availability of access points whether to activate the mobile device or not. We model our problem using a POMDP with an average reward criterion. The accuracy of our model is illustrated through simulations. © 2014 IEEE.