When ‘Just’ is Just Not Enough - Why Consumers Do Not Appreciate Non-Neutral Internet Access Services

Although Internet service providers (ISPs) are technically capable as well as legally allowed to offer non-neutral Internet access services, where the data flows of customers who pay a premium are prioritized over others, such an access service is currently not offered by ISPs. We argue that ISPs are hesitant to tap the price discrimination potential of prioritized Internet access services, because in the context of the ongoing public debate on net neutrality (NN), their customers would consider such differentiation unjust. In a representative survey among German Internet access customers, we find that the customers’ perceptions of justice as well as the framing of the mechanism by which prioritized Internet access is provided are indeed decisive for whether customers would prefer this access regime over NN. In particular, we find that perceptions of distributive and procedural justice influence customers’ choice for non-neutral Internet access. Moreover, customers are more likely to accept a regime that offers an absolute rather than a relative prioritization of data flow

DATA CAPS AND TWO-SIDED PRICING: EVALUATING MANAGED SERVICE BUSINESS MODELS

With the transition from a flat rate dominated pricing regime towards volume-based tariffs, bandwidth is often bundled with specific allowances or overuse-charges for data consumption. One central element in many new telecommunications tariffs is the implementation of data caps, which are a common tool to address several challenges telecommunications providers face in today´s markets. In this context the recent introduction of so-called managed services , or all-you-can-app offers draws the attention of regulators. The term managed service is coined by operators to describe online-services that have a special agreement with the network operator. These service providers agree to revenu-sharing agreements and in turn their customers are alleviated from counting the data traffic they cause against their monthly quota. In this paper we develop a framework that incorporates the different forms of volume-based Internet tariffs in the market. Furthermore, we present the case of data caps in combination with managed services offers and derive the relevant research qustions. In the following section we discuss the incentives of service providers to become a managed service and outline the creation of a theoretical model to analyze the case of data caps and managed services from an economic perspective. The paper concludes with a brief summary, general implications and a description of how to complete the presented theoretical approach

Dissecting the FEAST algorithm for generalized eigenproblems

We analyze the FEAST method for computing selected eigenvalues and eigenvectors of large sparse matrix pencils. After establishing the close connection between FEAST and the well-known Rayleigh-Ritz method, we identify several critical issues that influence convergence and accuracy of the solver: the choice of the starting vector space, the stopping criterion, how the inner linear systems impact the quality of the solution, and the use of FEAST for computing eigenpairs from multiple intervals. We complement the study with numerical examples, and hint at possible improvements to overcome the existing problems.Comment: 11 Pages, 5 Figures. Submitted to Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematic

Network Neutrality and Congesition-Sensitive Content Providers: Implications for Service Innovation, Broadband Investment and Regulation

We model the main arguments of the net neutrality debate in a two-sided market framework with network congestion sensitive content providers and Internet consumers on each side, respectively. The platform is controlled by a monopolistic Internet service provider, who may choose to sell content providers prioritized access to its customers. We explicitly consider the adverse effects of traffic prioritization to the remaining best-effort class and find that network discrimination has overall positive effects on welfare, because congestion is better allocated to those content providers with congestion inelastic advertisement revenues. In the long-run, network discrimination leads to infrastructure investments in transmission capacity and encourages innovation on the content provider side. In the short-run, however, discrimination has no effect on innovation because the ISP expropriates the content providers' increased surplus through the price for priority access. This is the downside of network discrimination: Albeit total welfare is increased, content providers will-at least in the short-run-be worse off than under network neutrality. Although price regulation can shift some of the congestion alleviation gains back to content providers, it is inapt as a policy instrument, because welfare is proportionally destroyed in the process

Network neutrality and congestion sensitive content providers: Implications for content variety, broadband investment and regulation

We study departures from network neutrality through implementing a Quality of Service tiering regime in which an ISP charges for prioritization on a non-discriminatory basis. We find that Quality of Service tiering may be more efficient in the short run, because it better allocates the existing network capacity, and in the long run, because it provides higher investment incentives due to the increased demand for priority services by the entry of new congestion sensitive content providers. Which network regime is the most efficient depends on the distribution of congestion sensitivity among content providers, but a guideline is that the regime that provides higher incentives for infrastructure investments is more efficient in the long run

Drosophila melanogaster cellular repressor of E1A-stimulated genes is a lysosomal protein essential for fly development

AbstractMammalian cellular repressor of E1A-stimulated genes is a lysosomal glycoprotein implicated in cellular growth and differentiation. The genome of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster encodes a putative orthologue (dCREG), suggesting evolutionarily conserved physiological functions of this protein. In D. melanogaster S2 cells, dCREG was found to localize in lysosomes. Further studies revealed that intracellular dCREG is subject of proteolytic maturation. Processing and turnover could be substantially reduced by RNAi-mediated silencing of cathepsin L. In contrast to mammalian cells, lysosomal delivery of dCREG does not depend on its carbohydrate moiety. Furthermore, depletion of the putative D. melanogaster lysosomal sorting receptor lysosomal enzyme receptor protein did not compromise cellular retention of dCREG. We also investigated the developmental consequences of dCREG ablation in whole D. melanogaster flies. Ubiquitous depletion of dCREG proved lethal at the late pupal stage once a knock-down efficiency of >95% was achieved. These results demonstrate that dCREG is essential for proper completion of fly development

Drosophila melanogaster cellular repressor of E1A-stimulated genes is a lysosomal protein essential for fly development

AbstractMammalian cellular repressor of E1A-stimulated genes is a lysosomal glycoprotein implicated in cellular growth and differentiation. The genome of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster encodes a putative orthologue (dCREG), suggesting evolutionarily conserved physiological functions of this protein. In D. melanogaster S2 cells, dCREG was found to localize in lysosomes. Further studies revealed that intracellular dCREG is subject of proteolytic maturation. Processing and turnover could be substantially reduced by RNAi-mediated silencing of cathepsin L. In contrast to mammalian cells, lysosomal delivery of dCREG does not depend on its carbohydrate moiety. Furthermore, depletion of the putative D. melanogaster lysosomal sorting receptor lysosomal enzyme receptor protein did not compromise cellular retention of dCREG. We also investigated the developmental consequences of dCREG ablation in whole D. melanogaster flies. Ubiquitous depletion of dCREG proved lethal at the late pupal stage once a knock-down efficiency of >95% was achieved. These results demonstrate that dCREG is essential for proper completion of fly development

ESSEX: Equipping Sparse Solvers for Exascale

The ESSEX project investigates computational issues arising at exascale for large-scale sparse eigenvalue problems and develops programming concepts and numerical methods for their solution. The project pursues a coherent co-design of all software layers where a holistic performance engineering process guides code development across the classic boundaries of application, numerical method and basic kernel library. Within ESSEX the numerical methods cover both widely applicable solvers such as classic Krylov, Jacobi-Davidson or recent FEAST methods as well as domain specific iterative schemes relevant for the ESSEX quantum physics application. This report introduces the project structure and presents selected results which demonstrate the potential impact of ESSEX for efficient sparse solvers on highly scalable heterogeneous supercomputers