A delay pricing scheme for real-time delivery in deadline-based networks

There has been an increasing demand to transport real-time data over packet-switched computer networks. Deadline-based network resource management is a novel approach to supporting real-time data transfer in computer networks. In a deadline-based network, each document to be transmitted is associated with a deadline specified by the document sender. These document deadlines are mapped to deadlines at the network layer, which are carried by packets and used by routers for channel scheduling; packets with more urgent deadlines are serviced first.;In deadline-based networks, the delay performance observed by real-time data largely depends on the traffic deadline and the level of load along the data path. To prevent greedy users from gaining an advantage by specifying arbitrarily urgent deadlines and to aid in network load control, I introduce a novel delay pricing and charging scheme in deadline-based networks to support real-time data delivery. In my pricing scheme, the concept of channel delay price is introduced, and it is decided using a market-based approach based on the traffic urgency level and the network load level at each channel. A user's charge is determined based on the amount of his/her traffic, the channel delay prices, and the delay performance that his/her traffic receives. My pricing and charging scheme can provide differential charges to users receiving different delay performance, thus preventing greedy users from gaining an advantage by specifying arbitrarily urgent deadlines. In addition, price-sensitive users may adapt his/her traffic in response to price. My pricing and charging scheme easily enable user adaptations, which in turn may significantly improve the performance of real-time delivery in deadline-based networks.