Conflict and cooperation in designing international telecommunication networks
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Con¯ict and cooperation in designing international telecommunication networks G Anandalingam1 and K Nam2 1
University of Pennsylvania and 2A.T.&T. Bell Laboratories, Philadelphia, New Jersey
In this paper, we study the problem of designing an international telecommunication network when multiple countries are involved. Each Country has the option of cooperating in the design of the overall international network, or simply forming bilateral arrangements with individual countries. Most countries will gain by having a truly international network which allows routing via transit countries; this takes advantage of distributed peak traf®c hours, and improves the network resource utilization. However there are many situations when countries may obtain greater gains by either behaving pre-emptively or by waiting for the major countries to make their decisions, and then being followers in a Stackelberg game. Using mathematical programming models, we examine conditions under which each of these behaviours are optimal. Keywords: cooperative games; global networks; non-cooperative games; telecommunications
Introduction In this paper, we examine the design of international telecommunications networks in a competitive environment. In particular, we examine conditions under which there could be cooperation among different countries in network design, and situations in which it is pro®table for a country to be a leader or follower in the design process. As international telecommunication networks grow and proliferate, design issues have become more complex. No corporate or public sector institution can survive in this highly competitive global market without telecommunication services. The United States is by far the leading country in the world's telecommunications industry, and has the most number of companies active all over the world. The European Community (EC) and Japan are emerging as new competitors across the globe. Every country in the world, especially in Asia, is rapidly trying to develop its telecommunications infrastructure.1 Frequently, this activity is undertaken in joint ventures with companies from the US, Japan, and Europe. Global networks connect all countries together terrestially, or by using satellites. One of the interesting features in global telecommunications is the distribution of countries across a number of different time zones. Voice traf®c, namely telephone calls, are more susceptible to this characteristic than data traf®c. A telephone call is established only when both the calling and the called parties are present, while data traf®c can reach its destination without the presence of the called Correspondence: Dr G Anandalingam, Department of Systems Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6315, USA. E-mail: [email protected]
party. Telephone traf®c ¯ow between two countries in different time zones reaches its peak during overlapping business hours of a day. Figure 1(a) and (b) show the a
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