Nash equilibria of a generic networking game with applications to circuit-switched networks

A generic mechanism for end-user transmission rate control into a differentiated services Internet is formulated and basic results of corresponding Nash equilibria are proved. We consider specific examples of the mechanism including additive increase and multiplicative decrease inspired by present day TCP congestion control. For the example of users sharing access to a bandwidth resource via resizable provisioned label-switched paths (MPLS), we study the equilibria and the performance of the generic mechanism and give analytical results on convergence to equilibria. The fairness of the resulting equilibria when user demands exceed available network resources is also studied.