Dynamics of usage-priced communication networks: the case of a single bottleneck resource

In this paper, we study end-user dynamics of communication networks employing usage-based pricing. We propose a generic network access mechanism in which users modify their access control parameter based on the quality of service they receive in order to maximize their net benefit. For the examples of users sharing access to a bandwidth resource via a single trunk with Erlang loss dynamics and for a differentiated services (diffserv) network, we study the equilibrium/fixed points and give analytical results on convergence assuming the network prices are fixed.