THE CLIFFORD-PATERSON-LECTURE, 1995 - MODELING COMMUNICATION-NETWORKS, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Modern communication networks are able to respond to randomly fluctuat ing demands and failures by-allowing buffers to fill, by rerouting tra ffic and by reallocating resources. They are able to do this so well t hat, in many respects, large-scale networks appear as coherent, almost intelligent, organisms. The design and control of such networks prese nt challenges of a mathematical, engineering and economic nature. In t his paper I describe some of the models that have proved useful in the analysis of stability, statistical sharing and pricing, in systems ra nging from the telephone networks of today to the information superhig hways of tomorrow.