International audienceNetwork neutrality has been a very sensitive topic of discussion all over the world. During this talk, we will first introduce the elements of the debate and introduce how the problem can be modeled and analyzed through game theory. With an Internet ecosystem much more complex now than the simple delivery chain Content-ISP-User, we will in second step highlight how neutrality principles can be bypassed in various ways without violating the rules currently evoked in the debate , for example via CDNs, or via search engines which can affect the visibility and accessibility of content. We describe some other grey zones requiring to be dealt with and spend some time on discussing the (potential) implications for clouds

Tuffin, Bruno

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Network Neutrality: Modeling and Challenges and its Impact on Clouds: Keynote Talk

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HAL Id: hal-01634382https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01634382Submitted on 14 Nov 2017HAL is a multi-disciplinary open accessarchive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-entific research documents, whether they are pub-lished or not. The documents may come fromteaching and research institutions in France orabroad, or from public or private research centers.L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, estdestinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documentsscientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non,émanant des établissements d’enseignement et derecherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoirespublics ou privés.Network Neutrality: Modeling and Challenges and itsImpact on CloudsBruno TuffinTo cite this version:Bruno Tuffin. Network Neutrality: Modeling and Challenges and its Impact on Clouds: Keynote Talk.GECON 2017 - 14th International Conference on Economics of Grids, Clouds, Systems & Services,Sep 2017, Biarritz, France. ￿hal-01634382￿Network Neutrality: Modeling and Challengesand its Impact on CloudsBruno TuffinInriaCampus Universitaire de Beaulieu35042 Rennes Cedex, Francehttp://www.irisa.fr/dionysos/pages_perso/tuffin/Tuffin_en.htmbruno.tuffin@inria.frAbstract. Network neutrality has been a very sensitive topic of dis-cussion all over the world. During this talk, we will first introduce theelements of the debate and introduce how the problem can be modeledand analyzed through game theory. With an Internet ecosystem muchmore complex now than the simple delivery chain Content-ISP-User, wewill in second step highlight how neutrality principles can be bypassedin various ways without violating the rules currently evoked in the de-bate, for example via CDNs, or via search engines which can affect thevisibility and accessibility of content. We describe some other grey zonesrequiring to be dealt with and spend some time on discussing the (po-tential) implications for clouds.Keywords: Network Economics, Game Theory, Network Neutrality, ContentDelivery Networks, Cloud Computing, Search EnginesThis keynote talk is mostly based on joint works with Patrick Maillé, PierreL’Ecuyer, Nicolas Stier, and Gwendal Simon.Network (non) neutrality has become a very hot topic in the past few years[6, 11], at the same time from political, economic, and daily-life points of view,because it may refashion the Internet business model and in general the telecom-munications vision and future. In short, the dispute started in the 2000s be-tween Internet service providers (ISPs) and major content providers (CPs). ISPswere, and somewhat still are, complaining about big CPs having their resource-consuming traffic flowing through their networks and not paying any fee for that,while CPs take is an increasing part of the total network-related revenue. As aconsequence, ISPs were threatening CPs to cut their access to the network, orat least to downgrade their quality of service, if they were not accepting to pay.This raised a lot of protests, from those CPs but also from user associations,concerned about the change of philosophy of the Internet it would lead to, andthe violation of the neutrality principle, stating that all consumers are entitledto reach meaningful content, and that packets should not be differentiated. Theunderlying question is whether the current telecommunications business modelshould be sustained, with the transition of the Internet from the initial inter-connection of cooperative universities to now revenue-seeking and now oftennon-cooperative actors. This led to public consultations launched worldwide,and set of recommendations from regulators.Our goals during this presentation are manyfold:1. Introduce the debate, its history and the pros and cons of neutrality, accordingto its proponents and opponents (following [7, 10]).2. Describe how game theory [12] can be used to design and analyze mathemat-ical models illustrating potential outcomes of interactions between Internetactors, and leading sometimes to counter-intuitive results. Some questionswe can answer are, among others: i) Is neutrality or non neutrality benefi-cial to Internet actors and to society? ii) Is regulation needed to drive to a“good” outcome, and what level of regulation is required? Two illustrativemodels we will introduce are the following.– In [3], we present a model with ISPs providing direct connectivity toa fixed proportion of the content, and competing for end users. Userschoose their ISP based on price. Three connectivity options betweenISPs are studied and compared: peering between the ISPs, no transfer oftraffic between ISPs (cut transmission with as a consequence exclusivitiesin terms of content), and volume-based paid transit. From our analysis,the “no transfer” option does not benefit to anybody. Also, comparedto peering, paid transit avoids a price war for end users when the pricesensitivity of users is high. A suggested rule with minimal regulation isto let the ISPs choose transit prices with the threat to impose peeringin case no agreement is reached; then user welfare is close to maximalwhile still leaving some decision space to ISPs.– Another type of model in [1, 2] deals with the case of competitive ISPsin front of a (quasi-)monopolistic CP, a situation barely studied whilerelevant in practice, and a topic of complain from ISPs. Thanks to gametheory again, it can be illustrated that, surprisingly, side payments arenot always profitable for ISPs, and can even be beneficial to the CP.A computable level of side payments can also maximize social or userwelfare, but the neutral case is the most suitable to avoid disparitiesbetween ISPs revenues.3. Extend the debate. The network neutrality debate is solely based on thesupply chainCP - ISP - users.In other words, users want to access the CP and the ISP is the intermediary.But the Internet ecosystem has become much more complex with a lot ofother actors serving as intermediaries between content and users [9]: wecan mention Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) or cloud providers, serviceproviders such as search engines or web portals sometimes necessary to reachpieces of content, etc. All those providers act as intermediaries who can favora service in competition with others, sometimes with financial compensation.When side payments are forbidden, ISPs could even differentiate servicesat a CDN or portal level by vertically integrating those services, withoutbreaching the current neutrality principle according to which all packets aretreated equally within the network. Our claim is that net neutrality debateshould probably be extended to all actors involved in the Internet deliverychain.– In [4, 8], we have analyzed the impact of a revenue-maximizing CDNon end-users, network providers and content providers, and compared itwith a neutral behavior in order to see if regulation would need to beintroduced. When there is competition between CPs, it is illustrated in[4] that an optimal pricing and caching strategy from the CDN can beunfair: a big CP can harm a small one by paying more. In [8], it is alsoshown that a CDN can also influence competition between ISPs: an ISPcan harm the other by “financially welcoming” the CDN.– In [5], we have determined the optimal ranking policy for a search engineas a trade-off between short-term revenue (based on the potential imme-diate gain from high-ranked links) and long-term revenue (based on thesatisfaction of users due to the relevance of the ranking). A non-neutralsearch engine can impact innovation non-neutrality impacts innovation.A revenue-oriented search engine may indeed deter innovation at thecontent level due to lack of visibility. Search biased search engines havebeen highlighted and have induced the so-called search neutrality debate,but our claim is that it could maybe be encompassed in a more generalneutrality debate.4. Discuss more recent issues such as zero rating. Zero rating in wireless sub-scription plans consists in not counting an application in data caps. Shouldit be allowed to attract customers? Can we authorize sponsored data, wherea service/content provider can pay for the transfer of data accessed by usersso that they are not included in data caps? Is it against the net neutralityprinciple even if packets are treated the same at network level? Is it bad forcustomers and does it hurt competition? It is the type of questions regulatorsare currently investigating.5. Discuss the implications of neutrality or non-neutrality for clouds. A non-neutral network could lead to less accessible cloud services, because requiringpayments from users (through access using their data caps), or side paymentsfrom cloud providers. Neutrality is therefore central for cloud providers. Butcould for the other side cloud services unfairly differentiate services, andcould this be against innovation at the content level? What about a verticalintegration of cloud services by CPs or ISPs? Those questions could ignitean interesting and surely vivid and sensitive discussion within the GECONcommunity.References1. Boussion, F., Maillé, P., Tuffin, B.: Net neutrality debate: Impact of competitionamong ISPs. In: Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on COMmu-nication Systems and NETworkS (COMSNETS). Bangalore, India (2012)2. Coucheney, P., Maillé, P., Tuffin, B.: Impact of reputation-sensitive users and com-petition between ISPs on the net neutrality debate. IEEE Transactions on Networkand Service Management 10(4), 425–433 (2013)3. Coucheney, P., Maillé, P., Tuffin, B.: Network neutrality debate and ISP inter-relations: Traffic exchange, revenue sharing, and disconnection threat. Netnomics1(3), 155–182 (2014)4. Gourdin, G., Maillé, P., Simon, G., Tuffin, B.: The economics of CDNs and theirimpact on service fairness. IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Manage-ment 14(1), 22–33 (2017)5. L’Ecuyer, P., Maillé, P., Stier-Moses, N., Tuffin, B.: Revenue-maximizing rankingsfor online platforms with quality-sensitive consumers. Operations Research 65(2),408–423 (2017)6. Lenard, T., May, R.E.: Net Neutrality or Net Neutering: Should Broadband Inter-net Services be Regulated. Springer (2006)7. Maillé, P., Reichl, P., Tuffin, B.: Internet governance and economics of networkneutrality. In: Hadjiantonis, A., Stiller, B. (eds.) Telecommunications Economics -Selected Results of the COST Action IS0605 EconTel, pp. 108–116. Lecture Notesin Computer Science 7216, Springer Verlag (2012)8. Maillé, P., Simon, G., Tuffin, B.: Impact of revenue-driven CDN on the competitionamong network operators. In: Proceedings of CNSM (2015)9. Maillé, P., Simon, G., Tuffin, B.: Toward a net neutrality debate that conforms tothe 2010s. IEEE Communications Magazine 54(3), 94–99 (2016)10. Maillé, P., Tuffin, B.: Telecommunication Network Economics: From Theory toApplications. Cambridge University Press (2014)11. Odlyzko, A.: Network neutrality, search neutrality, and the never-ending conflictbetween efficiency and fairness in markets. Review of Network Economics 8(1),40–60 (2009)12. Osborne, M., Rubinstein, A.: A Course in Game theory. MIT Press (1994)

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Network Neutrality: Modeling and Challenges and its Impact on Clouds: Keynote Talk

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