Effect of the penalty on the QoS received by multihomed clients

Abstract

The number of people with the internet access is increasing. Many people now want a reliable internet service. An internet service provider (ISP) wants to maximize his profit. Whenever an ISP has to make a choice between profit and quality of service (QoS) provided to clients, an ISP is likely to choose profit. It is possible to put pressure on an ISP to provide a good internet service by imposing penalties when bad services are provided. So an ISP will try to maximize his profit and also minimize the penalties paid to clients. The question here is in choosing the appropriate penalty value. In this paper, a system of ISPs and clients is considered. Clients have access to multiple ISPs using multiple SIM cards. An ISP provides internet service guarantee and whenever clients do not get the assured service, a predefined penalty is paid to the clients. The ISP uses best available solution to maximize profit. The system is simulated to find the effect of the penalty value on the average QoS that clients receive. Simulations show that during congestion, the average minimum QoS depends on only the penalty value. This shows that irrespective of the other factors such as ISP size, number of customers of each ISP; the penalty value is the only factor that decides the average minimum QoS that clients get. Based on simulations, a mathematical equation is obtained that shows the relation between the average minimum QoS and the penalty value. This can be used to find the appropriate penalty value that can provide the desired average minimum QoS to clients.