Economics of logarithmic Quality-of-Experience in communication networks

Abstract

Utility functions, describing the value of a good or a resource from an end user's point of view, are widely used as an important ingredient for all sorts of microeconomic models. In the context of resource allocation in communication networks, a logarithmic form of utility usually serves as the standard exam-ple due to its simplicity and mathematical tractability, with the additional nice property that the corresponding social welfare maximization enforces proportional fairness of allocated band-widths. In this paper we argue that recent results from Quality of Experience (QoE) research indeed provide additional justifica-tion for such a choice, and discuss several examples. Especially for Voice-over-IP and mobile broadband scenarios, there is in-creasing evidence that user experience follows logarithmic laws similar to the Weber-Fechner Law which is well-known from the area of psychophysics. Eventually, this logarithmic behavior will allow inferring a rather close linkage between subjective user experience, overall social welfare and general fairness issues.