Mechanism design and cost sharing in multicast transmission.

摘要

This thesis focuses on the issue of cost sharing in a multicast transmission where each link of the multicast tree is shared by a number of users. Therefore, multicast transmission cannot be priced according to unicast policy, and solutions to the problem of how to distribute the multicast cost among the set of receivers is required. It is assumed that multicast pricing is dependent on users' willingness to pay for a service, but the presence of selfish users complicates pricing. Selfish users are reluctant to report their true willingness to pay and tends to report the values that maximize their own welfare.; The thesis chooses a novel approach of mechanism design to solve the multicast pricing problem. Strategyproof cost sharing mechanisms can be used to avoid the deception of selfish receivers. The main objective in this thesis is to design distributed and communication efficient pricing algorithms that can implement the marginal cost and Shapley value strategyproof cost sharing mechanisms. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)