NeTS: Medium: Collaborative Research: Economics of Contractual Arrangements for Internet Interconnections

互联网是一个由大约50，000个自治系统（AS）组成的生态系统，这些系统独立运行，具有不同的目标和操作限制。将互联网粘合在一起的是形成这些AS之间相互联系的双边技术经济协议。自90年代中期互联网商业化以来，这些互联在过去20年左右的时间里以一种相当特殊的方式发展，经常导致关于谁应该与谁对等、双方中的一方是否应该向另一方付费以及关于互联应满足的条件的双边或多边争端。这些问题导致了拥挤的互联，在某些情况下，无法到达的问题，可能影响到数百万互联网用户。本研究的主要前提是，目前部署的互联网互连框架存在根本性的弱点和系统性的问题，不可避免地会继续引起AS之间的对等纠纷。这个项目不是把每一个对等互联冲突看作一个孤立的事件，而是彻底调查目前互联框架的局限性。这个项目的研究目标有三个方面。首先，分析了四种常见的不同的互连方案，并在一个通用但现实的建模框架下研究其局限性。这些设想包括互联网接入市场的垄断和寡头垄断情况，以及接入和内容提供商之间可能存在一个或多个中转提供商的情况。建模框架是基于经济学的最新发展，如双边市场框架和不完全契约理论。第二个目标是分析康卡斯特和其他来源提供的数据，以估计先前经济模型的关键参数并验证其预测。这些参数包括接入和中转市场对互联网流量的需求弹性、需求对拥塞的敏感性以及不同互联网服务计划的流量增长率。第三个目标是开发一个新的技术经济互连框架，可以提供一套更广泛和更经济有效的域间关系，而不仅仅是过境和无定居点的对等。拟议的互连框架还应提供适当的激励措施，使所有相关的互联网公司继续为互联网基础设施投入足够的资源。新的互联框架的设计将由前两个研究目标的建模和实证结果指导。该项目的教育活动将加强本科生，研究生和专业教育的概念，在于网络，博弈论，经济学和技术经济代理的交叉建模。外联活动将向经营者社区、监管机构和相关的技术经济论坛传播这一项目的成果。

The Internet is an ecosystem of about 50,000 Autonomous Systems (ASes) that operate independently, having different objectives and operational constraints. What glues the Internet together is the bilateral techno-economic agreements that form the interconnections between these ASes. These interconnections have evolved in a rather ad-hoc manner over the last 20 years or so, since the commercialization of the Internet in the mid-nineties, often resulting in bilateral or multilateral disputes about who should peer with whom, whether one of the two parties should pay the other, and about the conditions that an interconnection should satisfy. These problems result in congested interconnections and, in some cases, unreachability problems that can affect millions of Internet users. The main premise of this research is that the currently deployed framework of Internet interconnection has fundamental weaknesses and systemic problems that inevitably will continue causing peering disputes between ASes. Instead of looking at each peering conflict as an isolated incident, this project investigates thoroughly the limitations of the interconnection framework that is currently in place.The research objectives of this project are three-fold. First, to analyze four common distinct interconnection scenarios, and to investigate their limitations under a general but realistic modeling framework. These scenarios cover the cases of monopoly and oligopoly in the Internet access market, as well as the possibility of one or more transit providers in the path between access and content providers. The modeling framework is based on recent developments in economics such as the framework of two-sided markets and the theory of incomplete contracts. The second objective is to analyze data provided by Comcast and other sources to estimate the key parameters of the previous economic models and validate their predictions. These parameters include the elasticity of demand for Internet traffic at the access and transit markets, the sensitivity of the demand to congestion, and the traffic growth rate for different Internet service plans. The third objective is to develop a new techno-economic interconnection framework that can provide a broader and more economically efficient set of interdomain relations than just transit and settlement-free peering. The proposed interconnection framework should also provide the right incentives so that all relevant Internet firms continue to invest sufficient resources to Internet infrastructure. The design of the new interconnection framework will be guided by the modeling and empirical results of the first two research objectives. The educational activities for this project will enhance undergraduate, graduate and professional education with concepts that lie at the intersection of networking, game theory, economics, and techno-economic agent-based modeling. Outreach activities will disseminate the results of this project to operator communities, regulator bodies and related techno-economic forums.