Pricing in next generation networks: a queuing model to guarantee QoS

We consider the scenario where users access Next Generation Networks via Network Access Providers (NAP). We assume that users belong to N different classes and the bandwidth received by each class is determined by a User-Share Differentiation (USD) scheme. According to USD, each class is guaranteed a minimum bandwidth and all users accepted into the NAP are allocated the minimum bandwidth corresponding to their class and any remaining bandwidth is shared according to the ratio of the minimum bandwidths of each class. We develop a queuing-based model and solve an optimization problem to determine the minimum bandwidth (defined in USD) for each of the N classes that maximizes the revenue of the NAP, subject to satisfying a request blocking performance guarantee.