Inter-session network coding with strategic users: A game-theoretic analysis of the butterfly network

Mohsenian-Rad H, Huang J, Wong VWS, Jaggi S, Schober R (2013)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2013

Journal

IEEE Transactions on Communications Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

Book Volume: 61

Pages Range: 1473-1484

Article Number: 6466332

Journal Issue: 4

DOI: 10.1109/TCOMM.2013.021413.110555

Abstract

We analyze inter-session network coding in a wired network using game theory. We assume that users are selfish and act as strategic players to maximize their own utility, which leads to a resource allocation game among users. In particular, we study a butterfly network, where a bottleneck link is shared by network coding and routing flows. We assume that network coding is performed using pairwise XOR operations. We prove the existence of Nash equilibrium for a wide range of utility functions. We also show that the number of Nash equilibria can be large (even infinite) for certain choices of parameters. This is in sharp contrast to a similar game setting with traditional packet forwarding, where the Nash equilibrium is always unique. We characterize the worst-case efficiency bound, i.e., the Price-of-Anarchy (PoA), compared to an optimal and cooperative network design. We show that by using a discriminatory pricing scheme which charges encoded and forwarded packets differently, we can improve the PoA in comparison with the case where a single pricing scheme is used. However, even when a discriminatory pricing scheme is used, the PoA is still worse than for the case when network coding is not applied. This implies that, although inter-session network coding can improve performance compared to routing, it is much more sensitive to users' strategic behavior. © 1972-2012 IEEE.

Authors with CRIS profile

Robert Schober

Involved external institutions

University of British Columbia CA Canada (CA) University of California, Riverside (UCR) US United States (USA) (US) The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) CN China (CN)

How to cite

APA:

Mohsenian-Rad, H., Huang, J., Wong, V.W.S., Jaggi, S., & Schober, R. (2013). Inter-session network coding with strategic users: A game-theoretic analysis of the butterfly network. IEEE Transactions on Communications, 61(4), 1473-1484. https://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TCOMM.2013.021413.110555

MLA:

Mohsenian-Rad, Hamed, et al. "Inter-session network coding with strategic users: A game-theoretic analysis of the butterfly network." IEEE Transactions on Communications 61.4 (2013): 1473-1484.

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