Network capacity sharing with QoS as a financial derivative pricing problem : algorithms and network

Abstract: A design of an automatic network capacity markets, often referred to as a bandwidth market, is presented. Three topics are investigated. First, a network model is proposed. The proposed model is based upon a trisection of the participant roles into network users, network owners, and market middlemen. The network capacity is defined in a way that allows it to be traded, and to have a well defined price. The network devices are modeled as core nodes, access nodes, and border nodes. Requirements on these are given. It is shown how their functionalities can be implemented in a network. Second, a simulated capacity market is presented, and a statistical method for estimating the price dynamics in the market is proposed. A method for pricing network services based on shared capacity is proposed, in which the price of a service is equivalent to that of a financial derivative contract on a number of simple capacity shares.Third, protocols for the interaction between the participants are proposed. The market participants need to commit to contracts with an auditable protocol with a small overhead. The proposed protocol is based on a public key infrastructure and on known protocols for multi party contract signing. The proposed model allows network capacity to be traded in a manner that utilizes the network efficiently. A new feature of this market model, compared to other network capacity markets, is that the prices are not controlled by the network owners. It is the end-users who, by middlemen, trade capacity among each other. Therefore, financial, rather than control theoretic, methods are used for the pricing of capacity.