Pricing based QoS control framework

In the area of Internet pricing, much work has been done to solve different problems related to the quality of service (QoS) such as the optimal allocation of network resources and the effect in congestion control. This paper considers the combination of the pricing scheme and the whole QoS control framework. Firstly, a multi-level market model for the Internet differentiated services is presented. Based on it, a flexible QoS control framework is proposed. It consists of three major blocks: intelligent agent (IA), pricing broker (PB) and local pricing agent (LPA). Among them, a hybrid-pricing scheme is used as a tool for traffic control. The proposed framework provides a simple and flexible way to improve QoS over the networks via pricing technology.