The ongoing debate over net neutrality covers a broad set of issues related to the regulation of public networks. In two ways, we extend an idealized usage-priced game-theoretic framework based on a common linear demand-response model. First, we study the impact of "side payments" among a plurality of Internet service (access) providers and content providers. In the non-monopolistic case, our analysis reveals an interesting "paradox" of side payments in that overall revenues are reduced for those that receive them. Second, assuming different application types (e.g., HTTP web traffic, peer-to-peer file sharing, media streaming, interactive VoIP), we extend this model to accommodate differential pricing among them in order to study the issue of application neutrality. Revenues for neutral and non-neutral pricing are compared for the case of two application types.
Previously, we considered certain net neutrality related issues like side payments and premium service fees (e), limiting our consideration to monopolistic providers @cite_14 . In the following, we extend this model to include competition between multiple identical providers (actually based on an idea sketched in Section IV of @cite_14 ).
@cite_14
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Hahn and Wallsten wrote that network neutrality "usually means that broadband service providers charge consumers only once for Internet access, do not favor one content provider over another, and do not charge content providers for sending information over broadband lines to end users." In this paper we study the implications of non-neutral behaviors under a simple model of linear demand-response to usage-based prices. We take into account advertising revenues and consider both cooperative and non-cooperative scenarios. In particular, we model the impact of side-payments between service and content providers. We also consider the effect of service discrimination by access providers, as well as an extension of our model to non-monopolistic content providers. As Internet traffic grows exponentially due to the pervasive Internet accesses via mobile devices and increasing adoptions of cloud-based applications, broadband providers start to shift from flat-rate to usage-based pricing, which has gained support from regulators such as the FCC. We consider generic congestion-prone network services and study usage-based pricing of service providers under market competition. Based on a novel model that captures users' preferences over price and congestion alternatives, we derive the induced congestion and market share of the service providers under a market equilibrium and design algorithms to calculate them. By analyzing different market structures, we reveal how users' value on usage and sensitivity to congestion influence the optimal price, revenue, and competition of service providers, as well as the social welfare. We also obtain the conditions under which monopolistic providers have strong incentives to implement service differentiation via Paris Metro Pricing and whether regulators should encourage such practices. This paper develops a game-theoretic model based on a two-sided market framework to compare Internet service providers’ (ISPs) investment incentives, content providers’ (CPs) participation, and social welfare between neutral and non-neutral network regimes. We find that ISPs’ investments are driven by the trade-off between softening consumer price competition and increasing revenues from CPs. Specifically, investments are higher in the non-neutral regime because it is easier to extract revenue through appropriate CP pricing. On the other hand, participation of CPs may be reduced in a non-neutral network due to higher prices. The net impact of non-neutrality on social welfare is determined by which of these two effects is dominant. Overall, we find that the non-neutral network is always welfare superior in a “walled-gardens” model, while the neutral network is superior in a “priority lanes” model when CP-quality heterogeneity is large. These results provide useful insights that inform the net-neutrality debate. In recent years, to satisfy people's need for wireless services, the number of access points of the 3G-based systems, WiFi and WiMAX has been increased exponentially by wireless service providers (WSPs). As a result, there are many WSPs coexisting in the same hotspot area, which drives price competition among WSPs. Existing researche shows that each WSP will lower its price to increase revenue or market share, and this kind of price competition will eventually damage every WSP with the revenue decrease. However in this paper, we show that there is another type of price competition, where the WSPs' decreasing or increasing price levels occurs periodically and there is no equilibrium point. We illustrate it by using an example of the duopoly price competition and suggest a simple regulation rule that leads to an equilibrium point. Moreover, we show that the equilibrium point is Pareto-optimal and is well balanced in the aspects of total revenue, fairness and social welfare.