Nash Equilibria in All-Optical Networks: Extended Abstract

We consider the problem of routing a number of communication requests in WDM (wavelength division multiplexing) all-optical networks from the standpoint of game theory. If we view each routing request (pair of source-target nodes) as a player, then a strategy consists of a path from the source to the target and a frequency (color). To reflect the restriction that two requests must not use the same frequency on the same edge, conflicting strategies are assigned a prohibitively high cost. Under this formulation, we consider several natural cost functions focusing on the existence of Nash equilibria and on the complexity of recognizing and computing them.