On Optimal Service Differentiation in Congested Network Markets

As Internet applications have become more diverse in recent years, users having heavy demand for online video services are more willing to pay higher prices for better services than light users that mainly use e-mails and instant messages. This encourages the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to explore service differentiations so as to optimize their profits and allocation of network resources. Much prior work has focused on the viability of network service differentiation by comparing with the case of a single-class service. However, the optimal service differentiation for an ISP subject to resource constraints has remained unsolved. In this work, we establish an optimal control framework to derive the analytical solution to an ISP's optimal service differentiation, i.e. the optimal service qualities and associated prices. By analyzing the structures of the solution, we reveal how an ISP should adjust the service qualities and prices in order to meet varying capacity constraints and users' characteristics. We also obtain the conditions under which ISPs have strong incentives to implement service differentiation and whether regulators should encourage such practices

Relative service differentiation for mobile ad hoc networks

A relative bandwidth service differentiation scheme is proposed for mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs).Peer reviewe

Network Neutrality and the Evolution of the Internet

In order to create incentives for Internet traffic providers not to discriminate with respect to certain applications on the basis of network capacity requirements, the concept of market driven network neutrality is introduced. Its basic characteristics are that all applications are bearing the opportunity costs of the required traffic capacities. An economic framework for market driven network neutrality in broadband Internet is provided, consisting of congestion pricing and quality of service differentiation. However, network neutrality regulation with its reference point of the traditional TCP would result in regulatory micromanagement of traffic network management. --Broadband Internet,network neutrality,quality of service differentiation,congestion pricing,interclass externality pricing,interconnection agreements

Quality-of-Service differentiation in an integrated services GSM/GPRS network

We develop and analyse a generic model for performance evaluation, parameter optimisation and dimensioning in a \textsc{gsm}/\textsc{gprs} network. The model enables analytical evaluation for a scenario of integrated speech, video and data services, potentially offered in distinct priority classes. While a speech call is assigned a single traffic channel for its entire duration, both video and data calls can handle varying channel assignments. The principal distinction between these elastic call types, is that in case of video calls, a more generous channel assignment implies a better throughput and thus call quality, while for data calls the increased throughput implies a reduced sojourn time. Although a broader variety of models can be designed and analysed within the generic framework, the analytical and numerical results are presented for the \textsc{svd} model integrating speech, video and data calls, and for the \textsc{shl} model, integrating speech and two priority classes of data calls. In both models, an access queue is maintained for data calls which cannot be served immediately upon arrival. Markov chain analysis is applied to derive basic performance measures such as the expected channel utilization, service-specific blocking probabilities (\textsc{gos}), expected video \textsc{qos} (throughput) and expected (priority class-specific) data \textsc{qos} (sojourn times). Furthermore, closed-form expressions are derived for the expected video and data \textsc{qos}, conditional on the call duration or file size, respectively, and on the system state at arrival. As a potential application, these measures can be fed back to the caller as an indication of the expected \textsc{qos}. The included numerical study demonstrates the merit of the presented generic model and performance analysis, and provides \textsc{gsm}/\textsc{gprs} network operators with valuable insight in the \textsc{gos} and \textsc{qos} tradeoffs involved in balancing the various controllable system parameters

Unofficial payments for acute state hospital care in Kazakhstan. A model of physician behaviour with price discrimination and vertical service differentiation

We consider a discriminatory pricing and service differentiation model where: a)state physicians exploit their monopoly position and adjust quality to the unofficial payment made, and b)patients, perceiving state provision as poor, pay unofficially to improve it. Applying OLS and probit analysis to survey data on patients discharged from Almaty City hospitals, and using admission wait, length of stay (LOS) and a subjective categorical variable as quality measures. Unofficial payments are positively associated with surgical admission wait and the subjective quality of care while negatively associated with hospital LOS. Evidence suggests that price discrimination and service differentiation takes place in Kazakhstan.transition economies, unofficial or informal payments for health care, length of stay, ordered probit and marginal effects

A novel multipath-transmission supported software defined wireless network architecture

The inflexible management and operation of today\u27s wireless access networks cannot meet the increasingly growing specific requirements, such as high mobility and throughput, service differentiation, and high-level programmability. In this paper, we put forward a novel multipath-transmission supported software-defined wireless network architecture (MP-SDWN), with the aim of achieving seamless handover, throughput enhancement, and flow-level wireless transmission control as well as programmable interfaces. In particular, this research addresses the following issues: 1) for high mobility and throughput, multi-connection virtual access point is proposed to enable multiple transmission paths simultaneously over a set of access points for users and 2) wireless flow transmission rules and programmable interfaces are implemented into mac80211 subsystem to enable service differentiation and flow-level wireless transmission control. Moreover, the efficiency and flexibility of MP-SDWN are demonstrated in the performance evaluations conducted on a 802.11 based-testbed, and the experimental results show that compared to regular WiFi, our proposed MP-SDWN architecture achieves seamless handover and multifold throughput improvement, and supports flow-level wireless transmission control for different applications

Adaptive EDCF: Enhanced service differentiation for IEEE 802.11 wireless ad-hoc networks

This paper describes an adaptive service differentiation scheme for QoS enhancement in IEEE 802.11 wireless ad-hoc networks. Our approach, called adaptive enhanced distributed coordination function (AEDCF), is derived from the new EDCF introduced in the upcoming IEEE 802.11e standard. Our scheme aims to share the transmission channel efficiently. Relative priorities are provisioned by adjusting the size of the contention window (CW) of each traffic class taking into account both applications requirements and network conditions. We evaluate through simulations the performance of AEDCF and compare it with the EDCF scheme proposed in the 802.11e. Results show that AEDCF outperforms the basic EDCF, especially at high traffic load conditions. Indeed, our scheme increases the medium utilization ratio and reduces for more than 50% the collision rate. While achieving delay differentiation, the overall goodput obtained is up to 25% higher than EDCF. Moreover, the complexity of AEDCF remains similar to the EDCF scheme, enabling the design of cheap implementations

Optimizing Service Differentiation Scheme with Sized-based Queue Management in DiffServ Networks

In this paper we introduced Modified Sized-based Queue Management as a dropping scheme that aims to fairly prioritize and allocate more service to VoIP traffic over bulk data like FTP as the former one usually has small packet size with less impact to the network congestion. In the same time, we want to guarantee that this prioritization is fair enough for both traffic types. On the other hand we study the total link delay over the congestive link with the attempt to alleviate this congestion as much as possible at the by function of early congestion notification. Our M-SQM scheme has been evaluated with NS2 experiments to measure the packets received from both and total link-delay for different traffic. The performance evaluation results of M-SQM have been validated and graphically compared with the performance of other three legacy AQMs (RED, RIO, and PI). It is depicted that our M-SQM outperformed these AQMs in providing QoS level of service differentiation.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, 1 table, Submitted to Journal of Telecommunication

Determinants of Market Structure and the Airline Industry

The general economic determinants of market structure are outlined with special reference to the airline industry. Included are the following facets: absolute size of firms; distributions of firms by size; concentration; entry barriers; product and service differentiation; diversification; degrees of competition; vertical integration; market boundaries; and economies of scale. Also examined are the static and dynamic properties of market structure in terms of mergers, government policies, and economic growth conditions