Peer Unreviewed

Our work has long argued that competition  is the key to an Open Internet, not Network Neutrality regulations. The introduction of AppleSim by Apple on their iPads is a very interesting and important development in that regard. As Apple says in their marketing literature : So whenever you need it, you can choose the plan that works best for you—with no long-term commitments Apple's market power (ironically) has ensured that they got 3 of the 4 top wireless carriers in the US to sign on as partners. If you are not happy with the service of a provider, you can easily  switch. Now imagine if a similar situation existed for wired Internet access for consumers. Everyone had the equivalent of an "AppleSim" at home. Say in the form of a router, that can easily connect to different wired Internet providers with the click of a button on a web page. You are not happy with Netflix speed by your provider FIOS? Fine - you switch to Comcast. Your ISP blocks Skype video calls? Fi...

The following is the detailed response we have submitted to the FCC on it's NPRM 14-28 Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet (aka Net Neutrality proposals). Response to the FCC NPRM on Open Internet prepared by Richard Ma ( tbma@comp.nus.edu.sg ) and Vishal Misra ( misra@cs.columbia.edu ) 1.      Para. 1: From the first sentence, the proposed rulemaking emphasizes “broadband investment and deployment”. It seems that the scope is really limited to broadband or eyeball ISPs. We want to emphasize that the net neutrality issues are not limited to broadband. Many core issues are involved with transit ISP and content providers as well. When it mentions “open”, does it mean “neutral”? If it is not “open”, is the current Internet “closed”? It seems that “open” is not well-defined. We comment that “open” should be defined more clearly. 2.      Para. 2: “What is the right public policy to ensure that the Internet remains open?” Again, to an...

The topic of competition is a very interesting one and with layers and layers of complexity. While I firmly believe that the path to an Open Internet goes through building competition at the broadband level, and not  through complex network neutrality regulations, the issue is not simple. On the one hand, we have the example of UK, where OfCom has kept a pretty much hands off approach to Network Neutrality , the result has been a very open Internet that is market and competition driven. Almost every consumer in the UK has access to 4 ISPs that are similar in terms of capabilities and the Internet has remained "neutral". On the other hand we have the example in the US, where although significant portions of the nation have at least two comparable broadband providers (say, metropolitan DC and New Jersey where Comcast and Verizon FiOS are widely available) the "openness of the Internet" has been a problem. Specifically there have been peering disputes between Netf...

Over the weekend there was considerable chatter on the Internet about Netflix and Peer-to-Peer (P2P) architectures. According to news reports like this , Netflix is exploring P2P technology as a delivery mechanism, to defray cost of delivery to consumers. This becomes even relevant with the new net neutrality proposals that will allow " fast lanes " to exist on the Internet, paving the way for ISPs to charge more from customers like Netflix which will then ultimately get passed on to Netflix's consumers. However, if Netflix does intend to use P2P to work around this incoming increase in costs, why should consumers help out Netflix? We tackled this precise issue a few years ago and provided some answers. We looked at scenarios of a coalition that has one large "atomic" player (e.g. Netflix) and infinitesimally small peers (relative to the atomic player). The idea is applicable for many different scenarios, for example Femtocells , the FON network, P2P peer-as...

Our group has been researching and thinking about Internet Economics for quite sometime now. Events are backing up our predictions, and they are not good for consumers. Over 5 years ago,  we published the following work,  driven by at that time a PhD student of ours, Richard Ma :  Richard T.B. Ma, Dahming Chiu, John C.S. Lui, Vishal Misra and Dan Rubenstein ,   On Cooperative Settlement Between Content, Transit and Eyeball Internet Service Providers, Proceedings of 2008 ACM Conference on Emerging network experiment and technology (CoNEXT 2008), Madrid, Spain, December, 2008 I am happy to answer any questions regarding the math/analysis in the paper, and the slides associated with the talk we gave are here , but in the next few lines I will try and explain the implications  of the analysis. We looked at the economic ecosystem of the Internet, using Shapley values, with cooperative game theory as the guiding principle. Our analysis revealed something in...

The recent announcement of the Comcast acquisition of Time Warner Cable  has caused quite a furore. Consumer advocates are worried that it will cause problems, higher prices, bad performance etc. The issue is it will lead to the creation of a giant monopoly. Comcast argues that it is not a monopoly and as it is Time Warner and Comcast do not compete in any market so it should make no difference anyway. There are two issues here: (a) first is the question why have Time Warner and Comcast, two giant corporations not  competed anywhere yet? and, (b) the second and more important issue is not that of competition for cable service, which ostensibly Dish Networks also provides, but for Broadband access, where 19 of the top 20 metropolitan areas in the US will have only one  choice for wired Broadband. The merger/acquisition is not between two Cable  companies, but that of wired Broadband ISPs that are virtual monopolies. Our work,  Richard T. B. Ma and Vish...