Structural bottlenecks for communication in networks

Abstract

We consider the effect of network topology on the optimality of packet routing which is quantified by ${\gamma }_c$, the rate of packet insertion beyond which congestion and queue growth occurs. We show that for any network, there exists an absolute upper bound, expressed in terms of vertex separators, for the scaling of ${\gamma }_c$ with network size $N$, irrespective of the static routing protocol used. We then derive an estimate to this upper bound for scale-free networks and introduce a static routing protocol, the “hub avoidance protocol,” which, for large packet insertion rates, is superior to the shortest path routing protocol.