On Money as a Means of Coordination between Network Packets

TL;DR

This paper introduces PacketEconomy, a novel network model where packets trade positions using money, leading to improved resource allocation and queue management through game-theoretic analysis and experiments.

Contribution

It presents a new economic framework for network packet coordination, modeling packets as rational agents trading queue positions with a Markovian game approach.

Findings

Existence of Nash equilibria with packet trading

Improved network performance using packet trading

Effective resource regulation with fiat money

Abstract

In this work, we apply a common economic tool, namely money, to coordinate network packets. In particular, we present a network economy, called PacketEconomy, where each flow is modeled as a population of rational network packets, and these packets can self-regulate their access to network resources by mutually trading their positions in router queues. Every packet of the economy has its price, and this price determines if and when the packet will agree to buy or sell a better position. We consider a corresponding Markov model of trade and show that there are Nash equilibria (NE) where queue positions and money are exchanged directly between the network packets. This simple approach, interestingly, delivers improvements even when fiat money is used. We present theoretical arguments and experimental results to support our claims.