Distributed cost management in a selfish multi-operators BGP network

Abstract

In this paper we deal with inter-domain routing management from an economical point of view. We present a game theory based costing model that maps BGP peers (autonomous systems belonging to different operators) into a strategic (selfish) agents competing for transit traffic as a service provided and charged to their peers. Indeed, in our model each operator fixes a price to each neighbor for each transit traffic unit. Then, BGP routing choice is made based on a minimum cost criterion where the goal of each operator is to minimize its costs. We investigate some particular strategies of updating prices that operators can use locally in order to minimize their costs. We focus on BGP stabilization properties related to such strategies from a simulation point of view.