NeTs: Small: Collaborative Research: Inter-provider dynamics in neutral and non-neutral networks

Nets：小型：协作研究：中立和非中立网络中的提供商间动态

• 批准号: 1116626
• 负责人: George Kesidis
• 金额: $ 15万
• 依托单位: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-09-01 至 2016-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1116626&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NeTs; Small; Collaborative; Research; Inter

Over the past five years, the network neutrality debate involving for-profit ISPs and "content" providers, together with security-related issues, has figured most prominently in the Western media's coverage of the Internet and in government regulatory hearings in both North America and Europe. The two principal issues have to do with equitable treatment of applications (application neutrality) and side payments between independent content and service providers.The four research thrusts of this grant are: the development of unbiased, parsimonious models of macro-economic and networking dynamics of all parties involved; analyzing these models with an aim to assess the relative benefit of different pricing regimes, provider alliances, and service-differentiation strategies; acquiring current, real-world data and practical lessons-learned to inform these models; and focusing in particular on comparing neutral to non-neutral frameworks.In a preliminary example study, a passive model of end-user demand was used to define a game between multiple ISPs and multiple content providers. The users could engage in two types of applications: one delay sensitive, the other throughput sensitive. The fraction of users engaged with a particular provider depended on the provider?s current prices, subject to a customer inertia model when competitors? prices were close. A regulated side-payment between providers of different types was considered. A surprising finding at stable Nash equilibrium was that monopolistic providers (say a single ISP) receiving side payments actually had less income than the 'neutral' scenario without side-payments (side payments result in increased end-user prices by the payee which lowers end-user demand). Revenues from the application types which consumed the most bandwidth were naturally affected the most.The primary intellectual merit of this research has to do with the challenge of formulating tractable though realistic mathematical models of the cross-disciplinary elements of the macroscopic interactions among different entities participating in the Internet economy. Identified near-optimal strategies are tracked in the presence of naturally time-varying system parameters. Though a model may be simple, it often yields unexpectedly complex behavior (e.g., multiple Nash equilibria with differing stability qualities). Important real-world data and practical lessons will be identified in this research through the study of sensitivity of derived results to the different model parameters in play.One aspect of the broader impact of this research pertains to the enormous financial stakes involved in the network neutrality debate, and therefore the potential of this research to influence significantly Internet operations and architectural development even in the near term. Industry outreach is a significant part of this research, not only to keep abreast of current developments, but also to obtain first-hand relevant data that hopefully can be disseminated to the broader research community. Another aspect of the broader impact of this research is the development and dissemination of related "economics" teaching modules suitable for networking graduate courses, and the recruitment and training of students from under-represented minority groups in Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering.

在过去五年中，涉及营利性 ISP 和“内容”提供商的网络中立性辩论以及与安全相关的问题，在西方媒体对互联网的报道以及北美和美国的政府监管听证会上最为突出。欧洲。两个主要问题与应用程序的公平对待（应用程序中立性）以及独立内容和服务提供商之间的边付费有关。这笔赠款的四个研究主旨是：开发公正、简约的宏观经济和网络动态模型。所有相关方；分析这些模型，旨在评估不同定价机制、提供商联盟和服务差异化策略的相对效益；获取当前的真实数据和实际经验教训，为这些模型提供信息；在初步的示例研究中，最终用户需求的被动模型被用来定义多个 ISP 和多个内容提供商之间的博弈。用户可以参与两种类型的应用程序：一种对延迟敏感，另一种对吞吐量敏感。与特定提供商互动的用户比例取决于该提供商的当前价格，并受竞争对手的客户惯性模型影响。价格很接近。考虑了不同类型提供商之间受监管的侧支付。在稳定纳什均衡下的一个令人惊讶的发现是，接收侧支付的垄断提供商（例如单个 ISP）的收入实际上比没有侧支付的“中性”情景要少（侧支付导致收款人增加最终用户价格，从而降低最终用户的价格）。 -用户需求）。消耗最多带宽的应用程序类型的收入自然受到的影响最大。这项研究的主要智力价值与挑战有关，即为参与的不同实体之间的宏观相互作用的跨学科要素制定易于处理但现实的数学模型。在互联网经济中。 在存在自然随时间变化的系统参数的情况下跟踪识别出的接近最优的策略。 尽管模型可能很简单，但它通常会产生意想不到的复杂行为（例如，具有不同稳定性质量的多个纳什均衡）。这项研究将通过研究得出的结果对不同模型参数的敏感性，确定重要的现实世界数据和实践经验教训。这项研究更广泛影响的一个方面涉及网络中立性所涉及的巨大财务利益争论，因此这项研究即使在短期内也有可能对互联网运营和架构开发产生重大影响。行业推广是这项研究的重要组成部分，不仅是为了跟上当前的发展，也是为了获得第一手的相关数据，希望能够传播到更广泛的研究界。这项研究更广泛影响的另一个方面是开发和传播适合网络研究生课程的相关“经济学”教学模块，以及招募和培训来自计算机科学和电气与计算机工程领域代表性不足的少数群体的学生。