Private Peering Among Internet Backbone Providers

We develop a model, in which Internet backbone providers decide on private peering agreements, comparing the benefits of private peering relative to being connected only through National Access Points. Backbone providers compete by setting capacities for their networks, capacities on the private peering links, if they choose to peer privately, and access prices. The model is formulated as a multistage game. We examine the model from two alternative modelling perspectives - a purely non-cooperative game, where we solve for Subgame Perfect Nash Equilibria through backward induction, and a network theoretic perspective, where we examine pairwise stable and efficient networks. While there are a large number of Subgame Perfect Nash Equilibria, both the pairwise stable and the efficient network are unique and the stable network is not efficient and vice versa. The stable network is the complete network, where all the backbone providers choose to peer with each other, while the efficient network is the one, where the backbone providers are connected to each other only through the National Access Points.Subgame perfect Nash equilibrium, networks, pairwise stability, efficiency

Private Peering Among Internet Backbone Providers

We develop a model, in which Internet backbone providers decide on private peering agreements, comparing the benefits of private peering relative to being connected only through National Access Points. Backbone providers compete by setting capacities for their networks, capacities on the private peering links, if they choose to peer privately, and access prices. The model is formulated as a multistage game. We examine the model from two alternative modelling perspectives - a purely non-cooperative game, where we solve for Subgame Perfect Nash Equilibria through backward induction, and a network theoretic perspective, where we examine pairwise stable and efficient networks. While there are a large number of Subgame Perfect Nash Equilibria, both the pairwise stable and the efficient network are unique and the stable network is not efficient and vice versa. The stable network is the complete network, where all the backbone providers choose to peer with each other, while the efficient network is the one, where the backbone providers are connected to each other only through the National Access Points.Subgame perfect Nash equilibrium, networks, pairwise stability, efficiency

Intra-backbone and Inter-backbone Peering Among Internet Service Providers

We consider a model with two backbones and a finite number of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) connected to the backbones. ISPs decide on private peering agreements, comparing the benefits of private peering to costs. Intra-backbone peering refers to peering between ISPs connected to the same backbone, whereas inter-backbone peering refers to peering between ISPs connected to different backbones. We formulate the model as a two-stage game. In the first stage, ISPs decide on peering agreements. In the second stage they compete in prices a la Bertrand. We examine the effects of peering on profits of ISPs. Peering affects profits through two channels - reduction of backbone congestion which we call the symmetric effect and ability to send traffic bypassing or circumventing congested backbones which we call the asymmetric effect. The first has a negative or ambiguous effect while the second has a generally positive effect on firm profits. The two often act against each other making the net effect ambiguous. We also conduct simulations to determine pairwise stable peering configurations in a six-provider model and find that there is a paucity of inter-backbone peering in asymmetric settings.Peering, Networks

Intra-backbone and Inter-backbone Peering Among Internet Service Providers

We consider a model with two backbones and a finite number of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) connected to the backbones. ISPs decide on private peering agreements, comparing the benefits of private peering to costs. Intra-backbone peering refers to peering between ISPs connected to the same backbone, whereas inter-backbone peering refers to peering between ISPs connected to different backbones. We formulate the model as a two-stage game. In the first stage, ISPs decide on peering agreements. In the second stage they compete in prices a la Bertrand. We examine the effects of peering on profits of ISPs. Peering affects profits through two channels - reduction of backbone congestion which we call the symmetric effect and ability to send traffic bypassing or circumventing congested backbones which we call the asymmetric effect. The first has a negative or ambiguous effect while the second has a generally positive effect on firm profits. The two often act against each other making the net effect ambiguous. We also conduct simulations to determine pairwise stable peering configurations in a six-provider model and find that there is a paucity of inter-backbone peering in asymmetric settings.Peering, Networks

The Evolution of Internet interconnections

In 1995, the NSF officially shut down the NSFNet backbone, thereby ending the nascent Internets early architecture as a single backbone network. Today, the Internet is a group of loosely interconnected networks run by many diverse companies. These interconnections are in no way controlled by any industry or government agency, and are therefore held together only by the market demands of the Internet community. Although the FCC has traditionally maintained a stance of unregulation of all information and computer networks, they have increasingly show interest in ensuring the rapid deployment of Internet access. In addition, as more and more critical elements of communication are implemented on the Internet, some safeguards ensuring end-to-end connectivity, and therefore on maintaining the interconnection between networks, are needed. This paper discusses the history and evolution of Internet interconnections, compares and contrasts them to traditional telephony interconnections, and explores the possibility of regulation over such connections. This paper covers events up to the end of 1999

The evolution of P2P networks for file exchange: the interaction between social controversy and technical change

Since the irruption of Napster in 1999, Peer-to-Peer computer networks for file exchange have been at the heart of a heated debate that has eventually evolved into a wide social controversy across the world, involving legal, economical, and even political issues. This essay analyzes the effects of this controversy on the technical innovations that have shaped the evolution of those systems. It argues that the usual image of a single two-sided conflict does not account for most of the technical changes involved. P2P entrepreneurs and creators show a wide range of motivations and business strategies -if any- and users are not a monolithic group with a common set of goals and values. As a result, the actual historical evolution of those networks does not follow a simple linear path but a more complex and multidirectional development

Towards A knowledge-Based Economy - Europe and Central Asia - Internet Development and Governance

The diversity and socio-economic differentiation of the real world prevents the full-scale cultivation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to the benefit of all. Furthermore, the lack of determination and political will in some countries and slowness of responses to new technological opportunities in some others are responsible for the creation of another social divide – a digital one. The above problems were fully acknowledged by the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). The Summit called for a joint international effort to overcome the digital divide between and within the United Nations Member States under the Digital Solidarity umbrella. This report was prepared as a follow-up to the Summit and represents a brief review of the status and trends in the area of ICT and Internet development in the UNECE region and provides background information on the state of the art in some relevant ICT subsectors in the Member States. The report focuses on the state of the Internet critical resources and, consequently, on the ICT and Internet penetration across countries and social groups. It also looks into existing Internet governance arrangements and makes some recommendations. The report contains three parts and conclusions. The first part, “Towards a Knowledge-based Economy: Progress Assessment”, highlights the situation in the region with regards to the digital divide, both between and within countries, and national strategies and actions aiming at overcoming barriers to accessing the Internet. The second part, “Internet Development: Current State of Critical Internet Resources in the UNECE Region”, concentrates on reviewing the physical Internet backbone, interconnection and connectivity within the Internet in the UNECE Member States. The third part, “Governing the Evolving Internet in the UNECE Region”, focuses on the issues of Internet Governance in the countries of the region, challenges faced by the countries and participation of key stakeholders in ICT and Internet policy formulation and implementation. The final part contains conclusions and recommendations.Internet, governance, knowledge-based economy, Europe, Central Asia, transition economies

The Evolution of P2P networks for file exchange: the interaction between social controversy and technical change

Since the irruption of Napster in 1999, Peer-to-Peer computer networks for file exchange have been at the heart of a heated debate that has eventually evolved into a wide social controversy across the world, involving legal, economical, and even political issues. This essay analyzes the effects of this controversy on the technical innovations that have shaped the evolution of those systems. It argues that the usual image of a single two-sided conflict does not account for most of the technical changes involved. P2P entrepreneurs and creators show a wide range of motivations and business strategies —if any—and users are not a monolithic group with a common set of goals and values. As a result, the actual historical evolution of those networks does not follow a simple linear path but a more complex and multidirectional development

Improving the Accuracy of the Internet Cartography

As the global Internet expands to satisfy the demands of the ever-increasing connected population, profound changes are occurring in its interconnection structure. The pervasive growth of IXPs and CDNs, two initially independent but synergistic infrastructure sectors, have contributed to the gradual flattening of the Internet’s inter-domain hierarchy with primary routing paths shifting from backbone networks to peripheral peering links. At the same time the IPv6 deployment has taken off due to the depletion of unallocated IPv4 addresses. These fundamental changes in Internet dynamics has obvious implications for network engineering and operations, which can be benefited by accurate topology maps to understand the properties of this critical infrastructure. This thesis presents a set of new measurement techniques and inference algorithms to construct a new type of semantically rich Internet map, and improve the state of the art in Internet cartography. The author first develops a methodology to extract large-scale validation data from the Communities BGP attribute, which encodes rich routing meta-data on BGP messages. Based on this better-informed dataset the author proceeds to analyse popular assumptions about inter-domain routing policies and devise a more accurate model to describe inter-AS business relationships. Accordingly, the thesis proposes a new relationship inference algorithm to accurately capture both simple and complex AS relationships across two dimensions: prefix type, and geographic location. Validation against three sources of ground-truth data reveals that the proposed algorithm achieves a near-perfect accuracy. However, any inference approach is constrained by the inability of the existing topology data sources to provide a complete view of the inter-domain topology. To limit the topology incompleteness problem the author augments traditional BGP data with routing policy data obtained directly from IXPs to discover massive peering meshes which have thus far been largely invisible