ITR: Economics of Network Pricing and Resource Provisioning in a Competitive Market

定价作为缓解互联网拥塞的一种工具已经得到了广泛的研究。然而，在许多现有文献中，定价被视为激励最终用户以公平的方式共享网络资源的方式进行自我调节。这种定价的观点源于凸规划和对偶理论，它将资源的价格等同于增加一个单位资源的系统效用的增量效益。然而，价格作为互联网服务提供商（ISP）可能的收入流的影响，通常被忽视，在这种流行的观点。这个为期三年的计划，我们将研究定价从一个新的角度，最大限度地提高收入的ISP之一。研究建议亦会研究这种主动收费计划对网络用户的影响。在本项目背景下进行的研究预计将导致通信网络中定价方案和资源提供的方法和设计的重大进展，以及静态和动态博弈理论，学习算法，更广泛的影响：这个项目将开发一个新的研究生水平的博弈论课程，面向工程专业的学生。本课程将结合博弈论在网络经济模型中的几个应用。研究所在招收妇女和其他代表性不足的群体为研究生方面成绩斐然，将集中努力让这些学生参与拟议的研究活动。

Pricing has been extensively studied as a tool to relieve congestion in the Internet. In much of the prior literature, however, pricing is viewed as an incentive to the end users to self-regulate in a manner such that the network resources are shared in a fair manner. This view of pricing, which has its roots in convex programming and duality theory, equates the price of a resource with the incremental benefit to the system utility of adding one unit of the resource. However, the impact of price as a possible revenue stream for the Internet Service Provider (ISP) is usually ignored in this prevailing point of view. This three-year program, we will study pricing from a new perspective, one of maximizing the revenue of ISPs. The research proposal will also study the impact of such an active pricing scheme on the customers of the network.Intellectual Merits: Research to be carried out in the context of this project is expected to lead to major advances in the methodology and design of pricing schemes and resource provisioning in communication networks, as well as to some new fundamental results in the theories of static and dynamic games, learning algorithms, and distributed computation.Broader Impact: This project will develop a new graduate-level course on game theory, geared toward engineering students. The course will incorporate several applications of game theory in network economic models. The PIs, who have a good record of accomplishment in recruiting women and other under-represented groups as graduate students, will focus their efforts in involving these students in the proposed research activities.