The Budget valuation has a single configurable parameter—the “budget,” which is the total amount you are willing to pay for any amount of bandwidth.
Below is the Budget valuation window in the Desktop interface.
Below is the Budget valuation window in the Exress interface.
This is the easiest valuation to understand and configure. Use it when you want to purchase the maximum amount of bandwidth possible in each auction round.
Your agent begins by offering the unit price corresponding to your budget for all the bandwidth available. If your agent finds it will not receive this full allocation because the price it offers is too low, it bids again. The new bid raises the unit price offered and lowers the desired quantity requested so that the out-of-pocket amount remains the same. Of course, other agents may re-bid also when your offer is provisionally accepted but theirs is not. This process continues until all bandwidth is apportioned among all bidders who are willing to pay the market price.
The graph below shows the calculation your agent does in response to rising market prices.
An advantage of the Budget valuation is that your agent always begins by bidding for the full amount of bandwidth the seller is offering, whether it increases or decreases over time. With most of the other valuations, you must specify the maximum quantity you are interested in obtaining and would have to increase this setting to obtain more if the seller offered more.
There are two disadvantages to the Budget valuation:
Because you begin bidding by asking for all the bandwidth at your budgeted price, if your unit price is higher than the seller’s configured floor price, your agent sets the price floor for every agent bidding.
If your budgeted amount is low compared to other bidders, you could end up paying your entire budget for a very small amount of bandwidth. The minimum amount an agent will bid for is 1/300 of the amount available. Your agent will continue to offer your entire budget for amounts as small as 1/300 of what is being offered, before it finally gives up and lets itself receive no allocation.