Window-Games between TCP Flows

Abstract

Abstract. We consider network congestion problems between TCP flows and define a new game, the Window-game, which models the problem of network congestion caused by the competing flows. Analytical and experimental results show the relevance of the Window-game to the real TCP game and provide interesting insight on Nash equilibria of the respective network games. Furthermore, we propose a new algorithmic queue mechanism, called Prince, which at congestion makes a scapegoat of the most greedy flow. Preliminary evidence shows that Prince achieves efficient Nash equilibria while requiring only limited computational resources.

Stochastic Stability in Internet Router Congestion Games

“…We believe that this model is simple enough to allow interesting theoretical analysis, but still captures the essence of the game played between competing internet endpoints. We extend the results in [7] with respect to Nash Equilibria but also study the stochastic stability of the underlying games.…”

“…To study our problem in this adaptive learning setting, we use a new model proposed by Efraimidis and Tsavlidis [7] called the window game. This model is not only simple, but more general than previous models in which players are usually assumed to be TCP endpoints with specific loss recovery properties.…”

“…The policies we deal with here have been studied with respect to Nash Equilibria before (see the Related Work section for more details), mainly though assuming that the rates at which the sources send their packets is described by a given rule, for instance, assuming Poisson rates. In our work, we make no such assumption, but employ the window game of Efraimidis and Tsavlidis [7]. We believe that this model is simple enough to allow interesting theoretical analysis, but still captures the essence of the game played between competing internet endpoints.…”

“…Whenever there is an overflow, the algorithm drops only packets that belong to this flow. 3 The Prince algorithm described in [7] works in a similar manner. The algorithm in [10] was aiming to fulfill, among others, the following two objectives.…”

“…The Window Game model we study here was first proposed in [7], where it was used to find the NE in games between AIMD but also more general flows.…”