Reciprocity and Efficiency in Peer Exchange of Wireless Nodes Through Convex Optimization

This paper considers the allocation of exchange rates in a network of wireless nodes which engage in peer-to-peer dissemination. Here, in addition to the desirable throughput efficiency, it is important to ensure a level of rate reciprocity between peers, an issue that has been studied before only for wired networks. For the wireless substrate efficiency and reciprocity may be in conflict, due to the non-uniform link capacities of different peering choices, and the possible interference between them. We use convex optimization to formulate a relevant tradeoff, measuring reciprocity through a Kullback-Leibler divergence between sent and received rates. We propose decentralized methods which involve peer-to-peer interactions, and are shown to converge to the corresponding tradeoff point. Illustrative simulations are provided.