A simulation study of non-cooperative pricing strategies for circuit-switched optical networks

Abstract

We consider a non-cooperative community of users that share a number of circuit-switched optical channels. After specifying an example user utility function that corresponds to inelastic bandwidth requirements, we study numerically the existence and nature of Nash equilibrium point(s) reached by the users, for a fixed charge per circuit per unit time imposed by the network for each successfully transmitted packet. Our numerical simulations include several cases of user demand and utility, both symmetric and asymmetric. Finally, we describe how the network could modify its chosen price to steer the users to desired aggregate throughput levels.