A framework for handling connectionless services in ATM networks

ATM networks, which are connection-oriented transport inediums, are well-suited to handle interactive and real-time applications such as telephony and video conferencing. However, they will be underutilized if used directly in aipplications characterized by sporadic behaivior and short service time requirements such as mail and file transfer. For such applications, in which the user information typically consists of a single block of data., connection-oriented services are inefficient due to connection establishment and teardown overhead. These applications are more efficiently handled by a connectioidess service which multiplexes data from individual applications into a pre-established virtual connection. In this work a method for providing connectionless services in ATM networks is proposed. This method is based on a pricing scheme which allocates the communication resources in a Pareto-optimal way that achieves maximum total surplus. The key idea, is to decompose the service provision procedure among three separate parties whose interactions are governed by a. set of competitive pricing mechanisms.