Equilibrium analysis through separation of user and network behavior

Internet complexity makes reasoning about traffic equilibrium difficult, partly because users react to congestion. This difficulty calls for an analytic technique that is simple, yet have enough details to capture user behavior and flexibly address a broad range of issues. This paper presents such a technique. It treats traffic equilibrium as a balance between an inflow controlled by users, and an outflow controlled by the network (link capacity, congestion avoidance, etc.). This decomposition is demonstrated with a surfing session model, and validated with a traffic trace and NS2 simulations. The technique’s accessibility and breadth are illustrated through an analysis of several issues concerning the location, stability, robustness and dynamics of traffic equilibrium.