Effect of packet losses on end-user cost in internetworks with usage based charging

Abstract

One of the most sensitive and controversial aspects in incorporating usage based charging in internetworks is the accounting of the packets that are dropped by transit domains during transit from source domain to destination domain. From the perspective of network users, lost packets are a waste of resources, and constitute additional burden on them. We use simulation to quantify the effect of packet losses on end-user cost in an internetwork consisting of transit domains with usage based charging policies. Our simulation shows that time based cost, packet based cost and byte based cost are differently affected by the changes in the packet loss probability of the inter-domain route. This will have implications for inter-domain routing protocols.