Blockchain-based 6G Inter-Provider Agreements: Auction vs. Marketplace

Abstract

Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) can create an agreement that enables stakeholders in the telco world to interact and share services while maintaining trust. As a result, the multiple 6G network stakeholders can perform a role in a marketplace as service providers or consumers. Blockchain and DLT have immutability, transparency, and decentralized ledgers, making them critical in a futuregeneration network where various administrative domains are controlled by separate operators and resource providers to share resources (virtual network functions, services, or slices). Similarly, an auction-based approach based on the blockchain can eliminate intermediaries while ensuring transparency to increase competitiveness in such an environment. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a solution based on blockchain, considering both approaches (i.e., marketplace and auction). Furthermore, we use IOTA Tangle and IPFS to reduce the transaction and gas costs, which is one of the challenges for Ethereum-based use cases. We also provide experimental evaluations of our use case to analyze the results. It is observed that both options expand the consumer's possibilities to choose, and creating smart contracts adds trust. Moreover, the potential advantages of the proposed solutions are demonstrated through emulation results as a comparison to the traditional ways of doing such agreements between interprovider domains. We measure transaction latency and the maximum latency observed in our proposed approach is ≈ 25ms. Similarly, the average response time for the Ethereum-based approach is double our proposed approach's average response time. Consequently, the services are completed relatively fast with less latency and faster response time. Moreover, it is observed that in ≈ 2000s, up to 30 services can be completed in a marketplace approach and up to 20 ∼ 25 services in the auction. Lastly, the results also explain that by using IOTA-EVM, we can have feeless transactions, and IPFS helps reduce the storage cost up to ≈ 80%.

Blockchain‐based SLA management for 6G networks

“…Other provider domains can then submit bids, with smart contracts determining the winner based on criteria set by the consumer domain. 5 This letter builds on our earlier findings presented in, 6 emphasizing the advantages of smart contracts for ensuring distributed trust and immutable records. It also underscores the importance of off-chain access to external data logs for monitoring SLAs and computing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), with the assumption of data accuracy and reliability.…”

“…For instance, consumer domains could initiate a reverse auction (where providers bid to offer services at the most competitive rates) on a blockchain‐based Decentralized Application (DApp). Other provider domains can then submit bids, with smart contracts determining the winner based on criteria set by the consumer domain 5 …”