Bandwidth allocation in ad hoc networks: a price-based approach

Abstract

Pricing is considered as a means to stimulate cooperation in ad hoc networks: users can charge other users a price for relaying their data packets. Assuming that users set prices to maximize their own net benefit, we propose an iterative price and rate adaption algorithm. We show that this algorithm converges to a socially optimal bandwidth allocation. We use a numerical case study to illustrate our results.