This article is a summary of our current findings on these issues. Specifically, section 1 describes our modeling approach and sections 2 - 4 summarize our results. A paper providing the substance of our analysis is under way. The users are characterized by their message valuations, message sizes and delay sensitivities. We consider a continuum of atomistic users, each potentially generating on average one message per unit time.
Users are heterogeneous with respect to their message valuations.
We assume that users' ordered gross message values are given by constant elasticity marginal value curves. The message sizes, expressed in bits, are independent random variables and also independent of users' message valuations. The sizes of messages within the same class are identically distributed. The net value users derive from a message transmis-sion is sensitive to the quality of service delivered by the network. We focus here on traditional packet switched networks without resource reservation and assume that the packet switch buffers are of infinite capacity.