Congestion and decongestion in a communication network

We study network traffic dynamics in a two-dimensional communication network with regular nodes and hubs. If the network experiences heavy message traffic, congestion occurs due to the finite capacity of the nodes. We discuss strategies to manipulate hub capacity and hub connections to relieve congestion and define a coefficient of betweenness centrality (CBC), a direct measure of network traffic, which is useful for identifying hubs that are most likely to cause congestion. The addition of assortative connections to hubs of high CBC relieves congestion very efficiently. © 2005 The American Physical Society.