Improving rate allocation for ephemeral traffic using a second-order algorithm

Proportional fairness criterion which has been proposed the first time by F.P. Kelly and his colleagues has a number of properties in allocating users' rates. For example, it resembles the AIMD in the TCP-Reno (Jacobson, 1988) in rate allocation to users and there exists a well-established stability analysis in Kelly's work relating to stability of rate allocation algorithm. Another outstanding feature is that Kelly et al. try to solve the optimization problem of maximizing the aggregate utility of users in a distributed manner by decomposing the overall system problem into two sub-problems that can be solved by network and individual users by introducing a pricing scheme (Gibbens and Kelly, 1998). In the current paper, a new high-speed second-order rate allocation algorithm has been proposed which is based on the Jacobi method. The performance of the algorithm, under users' arrival and departure and background variable bit-rate traffic is evaluated in comparison with the conventional Kelly's algorithm. Simulation results show that proposed method outperforms that of Kelly in convergence rate and is particularly suitable for ephemeral (short-lived) users.