Selfish peering and routing in the Internet
(October 2004)Abstract
The Internet is a loose amalgamation of independent service providers acting
in their own self-interest. We examine the implications of this economic
reality on peering relationships. Specifically, we consider how the incentives
of the providers might determine where they choose to interconnect with each
other. We consider a game where two selfish network providers must establish
peering points between their respective network graphs, given knowledge of
traffic conditions and a nearest-exit routing policy for out-going traffic, as
well as costs based on congestion and peering connectivity. We focus on the
pairwise stability equilibrium concept and use a stochastic procedure to solve
for the stochastically pairwise stable configurations. Stochastically stable
networks are selected for their robustness to deviations in strategy and are
therefore posited as the more likely networks to emerge in a dynamic setting.
We note a paucity of stochastically stable peering configurations under
asymmetric conditions, particularly to unequal interdomain traffic flow, with
adverse effects on system-wide efficiency. Under bilateral flow conditions, we
find that as the cost associated with the establishment of peering links
approaches zero, the variance in the number of peering links of stochastically
pairwise stable equilibria increases dramatically.
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