A Study of Non-Neutral Networks with Usage-based Prices

Hahn and Wallsten wrote that network neutrality "usually means that broadband service providers charge consumers only once for Internet access, do not favor one content provider over another, and do not charge content providers for sending information over broadband lines to end users." In this paper we study the implications of non-neutral behaviors under a simple model of linear demand-response to usage-based prices. We take into account advertising revenues and consider both cooperative and non-cooperative scenarios. In particular, we model the impact of side-payments between service and content providers. We also consider the effect of service discrimination by access providers, as well as an extension of our model to non-monopolistic content providers

Using Tuangou to reduce IP transit costs

A majority of ISPs (Internet Service Providers) support connectivity to the entire Internet by transiting their traffic via other providers. Although the transit prices per Mbps decline steadily, the overall transit costs of these ISPs remain high or even increase, due to the traffic growth. The discontent of the ISPs with the high transit costs has yielded notable innovations such as peering, content distribution networks, multicast, and peer-to-peer localization. While the above solutions tackle the problem by reducing the transit traffic, this paper explores a novel approach that reduces the transit costs without altering the traffic. In the proposed CIPT (Cooperative IP Transit), multiple ISPs cooperate to jointly purchase IP (Internet Protocol) transit in bulk. The aggregate transit costs decrease due to the economies-of-scale effect of typical subadditive pricing as well as burstable billing: not all ISPs transit their peak traffic during the same period. To distribute the aggregate savings among the CIPT partners, we propose Shapley-value sharing of the CIPT transit costs. Using public data about IP traffic of 264 ISPs and transit prices, we quantitatively evaluate CIPT and show that significant savings can be achieved, both in relative and absolute terms. We also discuss the organizational embodiment, relationship with transit providers, traffic confidentiality, and other aspects of CIPT

Pricing and Revenue Sharing between ISPs under Content Sharing

Department of Electrical EngineeringAs sponsored data with subsidized access cost gains popularity in industry, it is essential to understand its impact on the Internet service market. We investigate the interplay among Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Content Provider (CP) and End User (EU), where each player is selfish and wants to maximize its own profit. In particular, we consider multi-ISP scenarios, in which the network connectivity between the CP and the EU is jointly provided by multiple ISPs. We first model non-cooperative interaction between the players as a four-stage Stackelberg game, and derive the optimal behaviors of each player in equilibrium. Taking into account the transit price at intermediate ISP, we provide in-depth understanding on the sponsoring strategies of CP. We then study the effect of cooperation between the ISPs to the pricing structure and the traffic demand, and analyze their implications to the players. We further build our revenue sharing model based on Shapley value mechanism, and show that the collaboration of the ISPs can improve their total payoff with a higher social welfare.ope

T4P: Hybrid interconnection for cost reduction

Abstract—Economic forces behind the Internet evolution have diversified the types of ISP (Internet Service Provider) intercon-nections. In particular, settlement-free peering and paid peering proved themselves as effective means for reducing ISP costs. In this paper, we propose T4P (Transit for Peering), a new type of hybrid bilateral ISP relationships that continues the Internet trend towards more flexible interconnections at lower costs. With a T4P interconnection, one ISP compensates the other ISP for their peering by providing this other ISP with a partial-transit service. In comparison to paid peering, T4P is able to reduce the combined transit/peering costs of an ISP due to the subadditive nature of transit billing. As a cost-effective alternative to existing interconnection types, T4P expands and strengthens the connectivity of the Internet, e.g., between content and eyeball networks. After analyzing incentives of ISPs to adopt T4P, we use real traffic data from several IXPs (Internet eXchange Points) to quantify the T4P economic benefits. Our evaluation confirms the promising potential of T4P. I

A study of non-neutral networks

Hahn and Wallsten [3] wrote that net neutrality usually means that broadband service providers charge consumers only once for Internet access, do not favor one content provider over another, and do not charge content providers for sending information over broadband lines to end users." In this paper we study the implications of being non-neutral, particularly by charging the content providers. Using game theoretic tools, we show that by adding the option for the service providers to charge the content providers, not only may the content providers and the internauts suer, but also the access provider's performance degrades