Pricing and fee sharing for point to multipoint and quality guaranteed multicast services

In this paper, the pricing of point to multipoint (PTMP) and quality guaranteed multicast services is investigated. We propose a two-phase, usage-based charging scheme. In phase 1, QoS requirements are converted into bandwidth reservation requirements based on the effective bandwidth theory. Exploiting an empirical model of the relationship between unicast and multicast services, the charging scheme approximates a PTMP multicast session as an aggregated unicast. The incentive compatible unicast charging scheme of Kelly, 1997, is then extended to the multicast case. Phase 2 conducts fair fee allocation among individual multicast users. The fee sharing is proportional to individual members' resource requirements should a unicast service be used. It not only has the fair and reasonable properties of "equal charge for the same service level," "a higher charge for a better service level," and "a higher member-charge under a higher group cost", but also is feasible for implementation under current technological constraints.