The Network Utility Maximization Problem with Multiclass Traffic

The concave utility in the Network Utility Maximization (NUM) problem is only suitable for elastic flows. In networks with multiclass traffic, the utility can be concave, linear, step or sigmoidal. Hence, the basic NUM becomes a nonconvex optimization problem. The current approach utilizes the standard dual-based decomposition method. It does not converge in case of scarce resource. In this paper, we propose an algorithm that always converges to a local optimal solution to the nonconvex NUM after solving a series of convex approximation problems. Our techniques can be applied to any log-concave utilities.