Traffic dynamics of packets generated with non-homogeneously selected sources and destinations in scale-free networks

Abstract

In this paper, we study traffic dynamics in scale-free networks in which packets are generated with non-homogeneously selected sources and destinations, and forwarded based on the local routing strategy. We consider two situations of packet generation: (i) packets are more likely generated at high-degree nodes; (ii) packets are more likely generated at low-degree nodes. Similarly, we consider two situations of packet destination: (a) packets are more likely to go to high-degree nodes; (b) packets are more likely to go to low-degree nodes. Our simulations show that the network capacity and the optimal value of $\alpha$ corresponding to the maximum network capacity greatly depend on the configuration of packets' sources and destinations. In particular, the capacity is greatly enhanced when most packets travel from low-degree nodes to high-degree nodes.