Linear Valuation

The Linear valuation (formerly called the Inelastic valuation) should only be used in unique situations.

With a Linear valuation, your agent offers the same unit price regardless of the quantity requested. At first might at first seem desirable, but it may be impractical. Because the Resource agent ranks bids based on unit price offered, the results is a take-it-or-leave-it offer by your agent. You receive an allocation only if the market price stays at or below your offered price. Your agent is not empowered, as in other valuations, to offer a higher unit price for a lower quantity to continue contending for an allocation.

Note that with a Linear valuation the cost and valuation curves are identical, so the graph only shows the cost (yellow) curve.

The value a buyer or seller places on bandwidth . Setting a valuation is part of setting a purchasing strategy. Valuation settings within a buyer agent let buyers specify the amount they are willing to pay for varying amounts of bandwidth. This information is used by the agent to respond to changing market conditions during a Merkato progressive second price auction.

The program that interacts with the rest of Merkato on behalf of buyers and sellers. Buyers can acquire bandwidth by configuring their agents to offer the price they are willing to pay for a range of available quantity, or use their agent to request a quote for a fixed-price bandwidth reservation. Sellers configure their agents with a quantity of bandwidth for sale and a minimum price they are willing to accept for that quantity.

An amount of bandwidth available for your use. Depending on the type of service being offered through Merkato, this can represent the maximum bandwidth available to you or a minimum guarantee of bandwidth available to you.

The price for something that buyers and sellers agree on. Merkato establishes a market price for bandwidth during each spot market auction round. There is a fixed amount for sale, so as demand increases, prices rise. The market price is reached when the cumulative demand of all the buyers is exactly equal to the amount of bandwidth being offered by the seller.

The bandwidth service that is offered through a single Merkato marketplace. It will have service attributes, an available quantity earmarked for it by the NSP, and a market mechanism for distributing bandwidth (either the spot market or reservation market ).

The amount of data transmitted or received per unit of time. When we refer to acquiring or selling bandwidth, we mean the amount of information that can be sent over a connection at one time, at the allowed speed, without packet loss or excessive delay. Bandwidth is measured in bits-per-second.

The Merkato mechanism by which bandwidth is traded, in a progressive second price auction. An optimal fair market price is established and bandwidth is allocated to buyers, based on their bids relative to other buyers.

The Merkato market mechanism by which a specified quantity of bandwidth, for a specific duration, is sold for a firm price specified by the seller and agreed to by the buyer. This is an automated process based on a rate sheet that the seller establishes in advance.