An approach to pricing, optimal allocation and quality of service provisioning in high-speed packet networks

Proposes a new methodology based on economic models to provide quality of service (QoS) guarantees to competing traffic classes (classes of sessions) in packet networks. The authors consider an economic model of a packet network where resources are priced. Traffic classes compete for network resources and they purchase them to satisfy their QoS needs. The authors provide a new definition for QoS provisioning based on economic models (Pareto efficiency). They obtain the set of optimal resource allocations (Pareto optimal) which provide QoS guarantees to competing traffic classes. They show the impact on equilibrium prices and optimal allocations due to traffic load and variability, and QoS requirements. They propose packet scheduling and admission policies to provide QoS guarantees to traffic classes based on available QoS and prices in the network.