  One of the basic properties of a queueing network is stability. Roughly
speaking, it is the property that the total number of jobs in the network
remains bounded as a function of time. One of the key questions related to the
stability issue is how to determine the exact conditions under which a given
queueing network operating under a given scheduling policy remains stable.
While there was much initial progress in addressing this question, most of the
results obtained were partial at best and so the complete characterization of
stable queueing networks is still lacking. In this paper, we resolve this open
problem, albeit in a somewhat unexpected way. We show that characterizing
stable queueing networks is an algorithmically undecidable problem for the case
of nonpreemptive static buffer priority scheduling policies and deterministic
interarrival and service times. Thus, no constructive characterization of
stable queueing networks operating under this class of policies is possible.
The result is established for queueing networks with finite and infinite buffer
sizes and possibly zero service times, although we conjecture that it also
holds in the case of models with only infinite buffers and nonzero service
times. Our approach extends an earlier related work [Math. Oper. Res. 27 (2002)
272--293] and uses the so-called counter machine device as a reduction tool.
