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

互联网是一个由大约50,000个独立运行的自治系统(AS)组成的生态系统，它们有不同的目标和运行限制。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，这些互连在过去20年左右以一种相当特别的方式发展，经常导致关于谁应该与谁同行、双方一方是否应该向另一方支付费用以及互连应该满足的条件的双边或多边争端。这些问题导致互连拥堵，在某些情况下，可能会影响数百万互联网用户的可达性问题。本研究的主要前提是，目前部署的互联网互联框架存在根本性的弱点和系统性问题，这些问题不可避免地会继续引发AS之间的对等纠纷。该项目不是将每个对等冲突视为孤立的事件，而是彻底调查现有互联框架的局限性。该项目的研究目标有三个。首先，分析四种常见的不同互联场景，并在一个通用但现实的建模框架下调查它们的局限性。这些情况涵盖互联网接入市场的垄断和寡头垄断的情况，以及在接入和内容提供商之间的道路上有一个或多个中转提供商的可能性。该模型框架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，以估计之前经济模型的关键参数，并验证它们的预测。这些参数包括接入和中转市场对互联网流量的需求弹性、需求对拥塞的敏感度以及不同互联网服务方案的流量增长率。第三个目标是制定一个新的技术-经济互联框架，该框架能够提供一套比过境和免结算同业更广泛和更经济有效的域间关系。拟议的互联框架还应提供适当的激励措施，使所有相关互联网公司继续投资足够的资源建设互联网基础设施。新互联互通框架的设计将以前两个研究目标的建模和实证结果为指导。该项目的教育活动将加强本科、研究生和专业教育，其概念位于网络、博弈论、经济学和基于技术经济主体的建模的交叉点上。外联活动将向运营商社区、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.