Prices need to be negotiated ahead of time. This means that arriving users choose the services from agents based on the price information and the service levels. Agents, post their prices and services offered for all the time-intervals on a certain day. For example, agents might offer low prices for a service between 6.00 A.M. and 4.00 P.M. and offer a higher price for the same service between 4.00 P.M. and 10.00 P.M. Agents, based on factors such as user demand profile and market behaviour, might compete to buy more services from the DLSystems. Agents have bugdets for buying services from DLsystems.
Agents compete among themselves for services from suppliers.
Agents charge the users based on QoS requested in searching and presentation. We assume that time-intervals, where prices are fixed, are set independently by each supplier. For example, supplier A might have 6.00 A.M till noon as one time period, and from noon till 6.00 P.M. another time period and price structure, and from 6.00 P.M. till 10. P.M. a different set of prices. The behaviour of the suppliers is an economic one, the change in prices is due to the market demand.