Restrictive mechanism of flow control among non-cooperative Internet users

Abstract

The flow and congestion control methods based on one-shot game model with non-cooperative game theory can explain the non-cooperative behavior of Internet users. However, the low efficiency of equilibrium solutions affects their utility. Here the behavior of flow and congestion control based on infinitely repeated game models is addressed; the repeated and infinitely repeated flow and congestion control game model is presented; the existence and optimization of the Nash equilibrium point are proved; the discount factor in repeated game is discussed; the punishment and threat strategy to users’ misbehavior is studied in N-users infinitely flow control game; the punishment restrictive method of users’ behavior is designed in infinitely and finitely games; finally, a flow control algorithm based on repeated game, FCAR, is provided based on the conclusions of repeated game model. The results of experiment and simulation show that FCAR algorithm could regularize and restrict users’ misbehavior effectively. FCAR algorithm can also make non-cooperative Internet users achieve cooperation in order to optimize the utility of the whole flow and congestion control system.