A Framework for Quality of Service Control Through Pricing Mechanisms

Most research in network pricing focuses on improving QoS for a single network. These approaches are not easily extensible to a set of interconnected networks, as the inter-ISP negotiations would be unwieldy. Our approach is to provide a general QoS-aware networking service. We first introduce the concept of QoS-transit services: transit services with QoS guarantees, where dynamic pricing is used to regulate demand on the associated links. After reviewing the structure of the Internet, and the locations of bottlenecks, we describe an architecture for delivering QoS across multiple networks using QoS-transit services. We describe the charging and routing frameworks, and detail how billing, metering, and policing can be achieved. Furthermore, we address security considerations, and discuss compatibilities with current network protocols. Finally, since we cannot expect all ISPs to offer QoS-transit services, we describe the concept of overlay ISPs: ISPs who provide QoS-transit services by controlling an overlay network