Resource competition at the NGN core network: An ecologically inspired analysis

Multiple traffic flows generated by multiservice applications converge at the core of the Next Generation Network (NGN). Therefore, various admission control techniques are implemented at the NGN core for ensuring that the admittance of a new flow in a resource constrained network does not unfairly disadvantage the performance of other ongoing flows. Regardless of the admission control scheme used, as the resource availability diminishes with time, a competition among the newly arriving flows with various resource consumption levels and characteristics become inevitable. As in the case of any competition, there will be negative effects, which one flow has upon another by consuming or withholding access to a resource that is limited in availability. In this paper, the phenomenon of resource competition at the core of the NGN is explored. Under this study, the NGN is considered as an ecosystem with finite resources, which comprises of heterogeneous access networks. Despite the presence of an admission control mechanism, we argue that in a competitive environment, over a period of time, certain flows corresponding to certain service classes will unfairly overwhelm the others. Analytical proof and simulation results are provided for supporting the above argument.