Loss-Cognizant Pricing in Feed-Forward Networks with Greedy Users

— We consider feed-forward packet switched networks with fixed routing and random congestion losses. Users of the network are assumed to be greedy in the sense that each user increases its traffic rate in proportion to profit per packet that it generates. Using a deterministic fluid model, we propose perpacket pricing policies to control packet generation rates of users. The resulting rates are shown to stabilize at local maxima of two suitable choices of social welfare in the network. We give decentralized algorithms for network links to compute their prices in a stateless fashion based on piggybacking control messages on acknowledgements. The obtained analytical conclusions are verified via packet-level simulations.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: INFOCOM
• Authors: Ashraf Al Daoud, Murat Alanyali
• Keywords: Communications, INFOCOM 2006, Packet Generation Rates, Packet Switched Networks, Random Congestion Losses