Pricing the Internet

Abstract

These pages describe an experiment to study the evolution of congestion control in the Internet, proposed by Richard Gibbens and Frank Kelly. Users want to send data through the network; but there is only limited capacity, and if too much data is sent there is congestion and some data may be lost. The aim of the experiment is to study how users might behave under a simple incentive scheme, whereby if congestion is high then some packets may be charged for. This experiment is designed to be interactive, involving anyone on the Internet who would like to take part. Given below are some Java-based applets and applications, to let you design your own user strategies and pit them against those of other people