Abstract
Network neutrality is the principle of treating equally all Internet traffic regardless of its source, destination, content, application or other related distinguishing metrics. Under net neutrality, Internet service providers (ISPs) are compelled to charge all content providers (CPs) the same per Gbps rate despite the growing profit achieved by CPs. In this paper, we study the impact of the repeal of net neutrality on communication networks by developing a techno-economic Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model to maximize the potential profit ISPs can achieve by offering their services to CPs. We consider an ISP that offers CPs different classes of service representing typical video content qualities. The MILP model maximizes the ISP profit by optimizing the prices of the different classes according to the users' demand sensitivity to the change in price, referred to as Price Elasticity of Demand (PED). We analyze how PED impacts the profit in different CP delivery scenarios in cloud-fog architectures. The results show that the repeal of net neutrality can potentially increase ISPs profit by a factor of 8 with a pricing scheme that discriminates against data intensive content. Also, the repeal of net neutrality positively impacts the network energy efficiency by reducing the core network power consumption by 55% as a result of suppressing data intensive content compared to the net neutrality scenario.
Highlights
Network neutrality regulations prohibit Internet service providers (ISPs) from applying different treatment to IP packets based on their content e.g. prioritizing, blocking or throttling certain Internet content or allowing quality differentiation
We provide a novel techno-economic Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model built to study the potential profit an ISP can achieve by a differentiated pricing scheme under the repeal of net neutrality
The analysis showed that ISPs can sell QoS to content providers (CPs) at a higher price than when QoS is sold to users, and the CPs are able to make more profit when QoS is directly sold to users than the case when QoS is sold to CPs
Summary
Network (net) neutrality regulations prohibit Internet service providers (ISPs) from applying different treatment to IP packets based on their content e.g. prioritizing, blocking or throttling certain Internet content or allowing quality differentiation. Proponents of preferential treatment of Internet traffic complain that the increasing demand for data-intensive content creates a significant burden on the communication network They argue that removing net neutrality will give ISPs further control of their infrastructure, which is crucial in order to improve QoS and reduce security threats. To the best of our knowledge, this techno-economic MILP model is the first that studies the potential profit an ISP can achieve by proposing differentiated service classes to deliver CPs content of different data rate requirements at a varying price per bit rate.
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