Costs and benefits of superfast broadband in the UK

This paper was commissioned from LSE Enterprise by Convergys Smart Revenue Solutions to stimulate an open and constructive debate among the main stakeholders about the balance between the costs, the revenues, and the societal benefits of ‘superfast’ broadband. The intent has been to analyse the available facts and to propose wider perspectives on economic and social interactions. The paper has two parts: one concentrates on superfast broadband deployment and the associated economic and social implications (for the UK and its service providers), and the other considers alternative social science approaches to these implications. Both parts consider the potential contribution of smart solutions to superfast broadband provision and use. Whereas Part I takes the “national perspective” and the “service provider perspective”, which deal with the implications of superfast broadband for the UK and for service providers, Part II views matters in other ways, particularly by looking at how to realise values beyond the market economy, such as those inherent in neighbourliness, trust and democrac

Fostering Cooperation in Structured Populations Through Local and Global Interference Strategies

We study the situation of an exogenous decision-maker aiming to encourage a population of autonomous, self-regarding agents to follow a desired behaviour at a minimal cost. The primary goal is therefore to reach an efficient trade-off between pushing the agents to achieve the desired configuration while minimising the total investment. To this end, we test several interference paradigms resorting to simulations of agents facing a cooperative dilemma in a spatial arrangement. We systematically analyse and compare interference strategies rewarding local or global behavioural patterns. Our results show that taking into account the neighbourhood's local properties, such as its level of cooperativeness, can lead to a significant improvement regarding cost efficiency while guaranteeing high levels of cooperation. As such, we argue that local interference strategies are more efficient than global ones in fostering cooperation in a population of autonomous agents.</p

Incentive Mechanisms in Peer-to-Peer Networks — A Systematic Literature Review

Centralized networks inevitably exhibit single points of failure that malicious actors regularly target. Decentralized networks are more resilient if numerous participants contribute to the network’s functionality. Most decentralized networks employ incentive mechanisms to coordinate the participation and cooperation of peers and thereby ensure the functionality and security of the network. This article systematically reviews incentive mechanisms for decentralized networks and networked systems by covering 165 prior literature reviews and 178 primary research papers published between 1993 and October 2022. Of the considered sources, we analyze 11 literature reviews and 105 primary research papers in detail by categorizing and comparing the distinctive properties of the presented incentive mechanisms. The reviewed incentive mechanisms establish fairness and reward participation and cooperative behavior. We review work that substitutes central authority through independent and subjective mechanisms run in isolation at each participating peer and work that applies multiparty computation. We use monetary, reputation, and service rewards as categories to differentiate the implementations and evaluate each incentive mechanism’s data management, attack resistance, and contribution model. Further, we highlight research gaps and deficiencies in reproducibility and comparability. Finally, we summarize our assessments and provide recommendations to apply incentive mechanisms to decentralized networks that share computational resources

Blockchain Technologies: The Foreseeable Impact on Society and Industry

The authors describe blockchain's fundamental concepts, provide perspectives on its challenges and opportunities, and trace its origins from the Bitcoin digital cash system to recent applications