NetSE: Large: Collaborative Research: Improving Internet Incentives

互联网的服务质量不足，无法可靠地支持许多实时、高比特率的应用。这一缺陷在很大程度上是由于用户或提供商没有考虑到他们的选择对其他人的影响？换句话说，由此产生的外部性。例如，在工作日下载电影的用户会降低对时间要求较高的应用程序的网络质量；在非中性网络中，如果不考虑这些费用在整个互联网服务提供商之间的相互作用，单个互联网服务提供商可能会对高价值应用程序收取过高的费用。根据情况的不同，问题可能是由于以下三种影响的组合：i)网络的技术不能使用户或提供商做出更好的选择；ii)网络没有向用户或提供商提供做出更好选择的信息；iii)用户或提供商缺乏做出更好选择的动力，即使他可以。本项目将调查这些影响如何影响网络中的服务质量。以这一分析为基础，将调查针对这些影响的补救措施。补救措施可能包括新协议和技术、定价机制和监管的组合？包括信息披露的要求和/或机制。智力优势：这个项目解决了网络中的基本科学和工程问题。科学问题包括对用户、内容提供商、服务提供商和网络中的其他各方在互动时面临的战略选择进行适当的制定和分析。由此产生的均衡策略及其分布式计算的性质提出了具有广泛相关性的新的数学和算法问题。解决的其他基本科学问题包括如何为网络演进和提高可靠性提供激励。工程问题涉及建议的算法和协议的可扩展性、安全性和健壮性、如何以增量方式部署它们，以及随着新技术、服务和应用的实施它们的可扩展性。广泛影响：调查人员预计，这项工作将有助于未来网络设计的范式转变。对外部性的关注是我们项目的核心，但在很大程度上还没有人探索过，我们的初步调查表明了它的重要意义。在本项目过程中进行的调查将建议如何修改网络设计，以考虑到外部性和网络信息缺陷。该项目专注于网络服务的工程问题和经济问题的交叉，将为S博士生提供理想的研究体验。预计这个项目的经验和结果也将极大地帮助皮？S课程，特别是通过让学生意识到在市场环境下运行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.