NetSE: Large: Collaborative Research: Improving Internet Incentives

互联网的服务质量不足以可靠地支持许多实时、高比特率的应用。这一缺点在很大程度上是由于用户或供应商没有考虑他们的选择对他人的影响？换句话说，就是由此产生的外部性。例如，在工作日下载电影的用户降低了时间要求更严格的应用程序的网络质量;在非中立网络中，如果不考虑跨ISP的这种费用的相互作用，个别ISP可能会对高价值应用程序收取过高的费用。视情况而定，问题可能是由于以下三种影响的组合：i）网络技术不能使用户或提供者做出更好的选择; ii）网络没有向用户或提供者提供做出更好选择的信息; iii）即使用户或提供者能够做出更好的选择，他也缺乏做出更好选择的动机。本项目将研究这些影响如何影响网络中的服务质量。将以这一分析为基础，研究对这些影响的补救措施。补救措施可能包括新协议和技术的组合，定价机制和监管？包括信息披露的要求和/或机制。智力价值：该项目解决网络中的基本科学和工程问题。科学的问题包括适当的制定和分析的战略选择，用户，内容提供商，服务提供商和网络中的其他各方面临的互动时。 由此产生的均衡策略及其分布式计算的性质提出了新的数学和算法问题的广泛相关性。解决的其他基本科学问题包括如何为网络发展和提高可靠性提供激励。工程问题涉及的算法和协议的可扩展性，他们的安全性和鲁棒性，他们如何可以逐步部署，以及他们的可扩展性作为新技术，服务和应用程序得到implemented.Broader影响：调查人员预计，这项工作将有助于在未来网络的设计范式转变。对外部性的关注，这是我们项目的核心，在很大程度上是未开发的，我们的初步调查表明其实质性的重要性。在本项目的过程中进行的调查将建议网络设计应如何修改，以考虑外部性和网络信息的不完善。这个项目，其重点是网络服务的工程和经济问题的交叉点，将提供理想的研究经验，该项目？博士学位学生预计该项目的经验和成果将大大有利于PI？的课程，特别是通过让学生意识到在市场环境中运作的工程系统的内在权衡。

The Internet suffers from insufficient service quality to reliably support many real-time, high bitrate applications. This shortcoming is due in large part to users or providers not considering the effect their choices have on others ? in other words the resulting externalities. For example, users who download movies during the work day reduce the quality of the network for more time-critical applications; in a non-neutral network, individual ISPs may overcharge high-value applications if they do not consider the interactions of such charges across ISPs. Depending on the circumstances, the problem can be due to a combination of the following three effects: i) the technology of the network does not enable the user or provider to make better choices; ii) the network does not give the user or provider the information to make better choices; iii) the user or provider lacks an incentive to make better choices even if he can. This project will investigate how these effects impact service quality in the network. Using this analysis as a basis, remedies for these effects will be investigated. The remedies may include combinations of new protocols and technology, pricing mechanisms, and regulation ? including requirements and/or mechanisms for information disclosure.Intellectual Merit:This project addresses fundamental scientific and engineering questions in networking. The scientific questions include suitable formulation and analysis of the strategic choices that the users, content providers, service providers, and other parties in the network face when they interact. The properties of the resulting equilibrium strategies and their distributed computation raise novel mathematical and algorithmic questions of broad relevance. Other fundamental scientific issues addressed include how to provide incentives for network evolution and for improved reliability. Engineering questions concern the scalability of the proposed algorithms and protocols, their security and robustness, how they can be deployed incrementally, and their extensibility as new technologies, services, and applications get implemented.Broader Impact:The investigators expect that the work will contribute to a paradigm shift in the design of the future network. The focus on externalities, which is central to our project, has been largely unexplored and our preliminary investigations demonstrate its substantial importance. The investigations undertaken in the course of this project will suggest how network design should be modified to account for externalities and network informational imperfections. This project, with its focus on the intersection of the engineering and economic issues of network services, will offer ideal research experience to the project?s Ph.D. students. It is expected that the experiences and results from this project will greatly benefit the PI?s courses as well, in particular by making students aware of the inherent tradeoffs in engineering systems that function in a market context.