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（ase）组成的生态系统，它们具有不同的目标和操作约束。将互联网连接在一起的是双边技术经济协议，这些协议形成了这些应用程序之间的相互联系。自90年代中期互联网商业化以来，这些互连在过去20年左右的时间里以一种相当特别的方式发展，经常导致关于谁应该与谁对等、一方是否应该向另一方支付费用以及互连应满足的条件的双边或多边争议。这些问题会导致互连拥塞，在某些情况下还会导致无法访问的问题，从而影响数百万互联网用户。本研究的主要前提是，目前部署的互联网互联框架存在根本性的弱点和系统性问题，这些问题将不可避免地继续导致应用服务器之间的对等纠纷。这个项目并没有把每个对等冲突看作是一个孤立的事件，而是彻底调查了目前存在的互连框架的局限性。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互联场景，并在一般但现实的建模框架下研究了它们的局限性。这些场景涵盖了互联网接入市场中的垄断和寡头垄断情况，以及在接入和内容提供商之间的路径上存在一个或多个传输提供商的可能性。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Comcast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的互联网流量需求弹性、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种新的技术-经济互联框架，可以提供一套更广泛、更经济有效的域间关系，而不仅仅是过境和免结算对等。建议的互连架构亦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通过网络、博弈论、经济学和基于技术经济主体的模型的交叉概念来加强本科、研究生和专业教育。外联活动将向运营商社区、监管机构和有关的技术经济论坛传播该项目的成果。

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.