The Clifford Paterson Lecture, 1995 - Modelling communication networks, present and future

Modern communication networks are able to respond to randomly fluctuating demands and failures by-allowing buffers to fill, by rerouting traffic and by reallocating resources. They are able to do this so well that, in many respects, large-scale networks appear as coherent, almost intelligent, organisms. The design and control of such networks present challenges of a mathematical, engineering and economic nature. In this paper I describe some of the models that have proved useful in the analysis of stability, statistical sharing and pricing, in systems ranging from the telephone networks of today to the information superhighways of tomorrow.