The disclosed embodiments include a system and method for establishing a price for communicating over a communications network. In one embodiment, the system includes a plurality of network nodes configured to communicate over the communications network and a primary network edge node configured to provide network access to a plurality of end user devices. The primary network edge node is configured to initiate a bandwidth occupancy query message to at least one of said network nodes along a traffic path to which an end user device is communicating, determine a highest bandwidth occupancy of said network nodes along the traffic path, and compute a current price for the end user device communicating over the traffic path based on the highest bandwidth occupancy.