Pricing of Bandwidth and Communication On Demand Services

Keynote Speaker: Jean Walrand, University of California

Abstract

Technology is available to provide bandwidth-on-demand services. These services enable a host of new applications that users value and they should generate new revenues for the network operators. The pricing of such services is an essential component of their commercial success. Pricing bandwidth is not a trivial exercise for a few reasons. First, bandwidth is a finite divisible resource. Multiple users may compete for that resource and value it differently. Second, providing end-to-end bandwidth generally requires a combination of links that belong to different operators. Third, the signalling between users and providers cannot be exceedingly complex. In this talk, we illustrate some of the main ideas and results from the research on pricing of bandwidth and communication services. Our goal is to explain some key concepts with simple examples.

Biography

Jean Walrand received the Ph.D. degree from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences of the University of California at Berkeley where he is now Professor. His research interests include decision theory, stochastic processes, and communication networks. He is the author of An Introduction to Queueing Networks (Prentice Hall, 1988) and of Communication Networks: A First Course (2nd ed. McGraw-Hill,1998) and co-author of High–Performance Communication Networks (2nd ed, Morgan Kaufman, 2000). Prof. Walrand is a Fellow of the Belgian American Education Foundation and of the IEEE and a recipient of the Lanchester Prize and of the Stephen O. Rice Prize.