Equilibrium pricing in multi-service priority-based networks

The pricing of network services not only determines the economic viability of commercial networks but also plays an important role in traffic management through its influence on user behavior. This paper discusses the pricing of services in a priority-based network by employing game-theoretic concepts. Given any price difference between services and an estimate of users' utility functions, we describe a method for predicting what users' service choices will be. In this fashion, service providers can determine what price ranges better encourage users to exhibit behavior that is mutually beneficial to users and providers. Under certain strict assumptions for the traffic characteristics and utility functions, necessary and sufficient conditions for the achievement of an optimal equilbrium are presented.