Pricing, competition, and routing in relay networks

We study multi-hop relay networks where pricing is used to provide incentives for forwarding traffic. In these networks, nodes price their services strategically to maximize its profit from forwarding traffic, and allocate their received traffic to service providers to minimize the amount paid. In the resulting pricing game, we show that the socially optimal network routing can always be induced by an equilibrium. However, inefficient equilibria also exist. In particular, we show that inefficiencies stem from the intrinsic multi-hop network structure and can give rise to an infinite price of anarchy. This phenomenon is a fundamental issue for multi-hop networks, which persists even when the source has elastic demand.

[1]  Eric Maskin,et al.  The Existence of Equilibrium with Price-Setting Firms , 1986 .

[2]  Robert G. Gallager,et al.  A Minimum Delay Routing Algorithm Using Distributed Computation , 1977, IEEE Trans. Commun..

[3]  Peter Marbach,et al.  Cooperation in wireless ad hoc networks: a market-based approach , 2005, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking.

[4]  Xiang-Yang Li,et al.  OURS: optimal unicast routing systems in non-cooperative wireless networks , 2006, MobiCom '06.

[5]  Xu Ying-hu,et al.  Exploiting Mobility in Ad-Hoc Wireless Networks with Incentives , 2008 .

[6]  Markus Jakobsson,et al.  Node cooperation in hybrid ad hoc networks , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing.

[7]  R. Srikant,et al.  Revenue-maximizing pricing and capacity expansion in a many-users regime , 2002, Proceedings.Twenty-First Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies.

[8]  Alberto Blanc,et al.  Designing incentives for peer-to-peer routing , 2005, Proceedings IEEE 24th Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies..

[9]  Dirk Westhoff,et al.  Charging support for ad hoc stub networks , 2003, Comput. Commun..

[10]  Sheng Zhong,et al.  On designing incentive-compatible routing and forwarding protocols in wireless ad-hoc networks , 2006, Wirel. Networks.

[11]  Edmund M. Yeh,et al.  Equilibria and price of anarchy in parallel relay networks with node pricing , 2008, 2008 42nd Annual Conference on Information Sciences and Systems.

[12]  Paolo Santi,et al.  COMMIT: a sender-centric truthful and energy-efficient routing protocol for ad hoc networks with selfish nodes , 2005, 19th IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium.

[13]  Jean C. Walrand,et al.  Pricing differentiated Internet services , 2005, Proceedings IEEE 24th Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies..

[14]  A. Ozdaglar,et al.  Algorithmic Game Theory: Incentives and Pricing in Communications Networks , 2007 .

[15]  Jean-Pierre Hubaux,et al.  Security and Cooperation in Wireless Networks , 2007, ESAS.

[16]  Benjamin Van Roy,et al.  Investment and Market Structure in Industries with Congestion , 2007, Oper. Res..

[17]  Levente Buttyán,et al.  Enforcing service availability in mobile ad-hoc WANs , 2000, MobiHoc.

[18]  Éva Tardos,et al.  A network pricing game for selfish traffic , 2005, PODC '05.

[19]  Asuman E. Ozdaglar,et al.  Competition in Parallel-Serial Networks , 2007, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications.

[20]  Jon Crowcroft,et al.  Modelling incentives for collaboration in mobile ad hoc networks , 2004, Perform. Evaluation.

[21]  Cheng Zhu-ran.  EXPLOITING MOBILITY IN AD-HOC WIRELESS NETWORKS WITH INCENTIVES , 2007 .

[22]  R. Srikant,et al.  Economics of Network Pricing With Multiple ISPs , 2006, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking.

[23]  Jean C. Walrand,et al.  Pricing and revenue sharing strategies for Internet service providers , 2005, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications.

[24]  Levente Buttyán,et al.  Stimulating Cooperation in Self-Organizing Mobile Ad Hoc Networks , 2003, Mob. Networks Appl..

[25]  Narayan B. Mandayam,et al.  Pricing for enabling forwarding in self-configuring ad hoc networks , 2004, 2004 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (IEEE Cat. No.04TH8733).

[26]  B. Van Roy,et al.  Investment and Market Structure in Industries with Congestion , 2007 .

[27]  Levente Buttyán,et al.  Security and Cooperation in Wireless Networks: Thwarting Malicious and Selfish Behavior in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing , 2007 .

[28]  Tim Roughgarden,et al.  Bertrand competition in networks , 2008, SECO.

[29]  W. Wang,et al.  Market-driven bandwidth allocation in selfish overlay networks , 2005, Proceedings IEEE 24th Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies..

[30]  Pravin Varaiya,et al.  Pricing network services , 2003, IEEE INFOCOM 2003. Twenty-second Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies (IEEE Cat. No.03CH37428).

[31]  Markus Jakobsson,et al.  A Micro-Payment Scheme Encouraging Collaboration in Multi-hop Cellular Networks , 2003, Financial Cryptography.