Internet Access Services Research Articles

The Open Internet vs. Net Neutrality and the Free Internet

The terms net neutrality, free Internet, and open Internet are not synonymous but rather point to three different ways of construing the principle of nondiscrimination in the treatment of Internet traffic. Net neutrality protects freedom from discrimination among types or sources of Internet traffic, without regard to any competing interests or countervailing considerations. On this understanding of the nondiscrimination principle, discriminatory practices are inherently harmful, and as such must be prohibited across the board, no matter what. The free Internet only prohibits anticompetitive discrimination. And, finally, the open Internet protects two competing freedoms: freedom from discriminatory practices and the freedom to engage in such practices. This study aims to (1) closely examine each of these three understandings of the nondiscrimination principle; (2) identify which of them best describes the policy adopted by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC); (3) explain the FCC’s decision-making by pointing out the forces that feed into it; and, finally, (4) assess the agency’s policies in the context of the Broadband Internet Access Service (BIAS) market in which they are implemented, arguing that there is a disconnect between those policies and that market.

ОЦЕНКА КАЧЕСТВА УСЛУГ И ОБСЛУЖИВАНИЯ МОБИЛЬНОЙ СВЯЗИ В УСЛОВИЯХ ДИДЖИТАЛИЗАЦИИ ЭКОНОМИКИ

The article states problems encountered in assessing the quality of services during the formation of the digital economy and society. These problems include the need to transform approaches for assessing the quality of services by taking into account new techno-economic trends and the needs of consumers, the permanent appearance of new services and the need to assess the quality of service. The analysis of the state of development of the market of communication services and informatization is carried out. Structuring the services market and mobile communication have shown that trends in demand decline due to increased demand for Internet access services, however, remain prevalent over other types of communications by income and number of subscribers. The basic criteria of quality evaluation system services include network availability and suitability, availability, adequacy and continuity of services. The main shortcomings of the existing criteria are in terms of operator interaction with consumers, including the lack of accounting requirements and expectations. The transition from quality assurance system to quality management system with customer orientation and quality of service is proposed. To identify the gap between the expected and real level of service quality and mobile service, a consumer survey was conducted that identified the main gaps: lack of understanding by the operator of customer expectations, inaccessibility of information to customers about quality standards, lack of confidence in the proper service, inconsistency of the declared quality of service the actual level, lack of dialogue with consumers, etc. Proposed quality indicators that most closely reflect the requirements of consumers regarding the quality of services and services in the development of digital telecommunication services, namely materiality, reliability, responsiveness, reliability, image, user-friendliness of the interface, correctness of financial relations, digitalization.

Determination of the Relationship between Cell Network Parameters with a Cubic Hermite Spline

One of the most urgent tasks during the organization of cellular networks is the task of improving the quality of service provision by the cellular operator. The paper presents a method for determining the relationship between the cellular network parameters KPI and KQI by using cubic Hermite spline. First of all, the theoretical principle of calculating and constructing a cubic Hermite spline is given in satisfaction of the conditions of the least squares’ method. The use of splines, as a signal model, can significantly improve the quality of signal processing due to the continuity of values and part of the derivatives in the nodes of spline gluing. Cubic Hermite splines, in turn, differ in their simplicity of calculations from the global one, which ensures high performance in computing, which is important for real-time operation when processing large amounts of data.On the basis of this, to evaluate the use of this spline an experimental study was conducted to establish the functional dependence between KPI and KQI network parameters. Namely, within the framework of the work, the Internet access service has been tested on the basis of the use of 3G cellular technology. The experiment consists of 50 experiments. Data was obtained under constant external conditions to ensure the purity of the experiment. On the basis of the measured data for each parameter, the ordinates vector of the spline bonding nodes was calculated and an approximation of the parameters was made using Cubic Hermite splines.The next step is to establish the influence degree of each KPI parameter on the single KQI parameter. The analytical connection coefficients were found taking into account that the mean square error of the KQI parameter prediction from the KPI parameters would be minimal. As a result, on the above data basis, the statistical alignment of the time series of the KQI parameter was performed, that is, it was leveled the KQI physics process using already found KPI approximated parameters.The use of splines allows us to find not only statistical estimates of the desired parameters of the spline approximations, but also their confidence intervals, which increases the accuracy and reliability of the results and it is undoubtedly the advantage of the chosen approach. In our case, this allows you to get a KQI forecast from KPI.In the future, research under such conditions will be followed by the implementation of a specific KPI parameter choice in order to its improvement to improve the quality of service provided to users of the cellular communication operator.Ref. 11, fig. 10.

An Adaptive Multipath Algorithm to Overcome the Unpredictability of Heterogeneous Wireless Networks for High-Speed Railway

Accessing Internet services in high-speed mobile scenario is an increasing demand for passengers and vendors. Owing to the bandwidth limitation of a single wireless network, researchers attempt to utilize the heterogeneous wireless networks along tracks to achieve multipath parallel transmission. These multipath transmission schemes usually depend on the accurate estimation of network quality to achieve high performance. However, due to the unpredictability of wireless networks in high-speed mobile scenario, current multipath transmission schemes perform poorly. In this paper, first, we make quantitative analysis for the unpredictability of wireless networks. With lots of results of real experiments, we make quantitative analysis for the estimation error of classical algorithms in different scenarios. Second, aiming at the unpredictability of wireless networks, we propose a multipath transmission algorithm named receiver adaptive incremental delay (RAID) that can aggregate bandwidth for heterogeneous networks independent of accurate network quality estimation. Final, we deploy the RAID algorithm into a real system. Abundant of real experiments and simulations prove that our proposed algorithm has a better performance than the earliest completion first algorithm and the weighted round Robin (WRR) algorithm in high-speed mobile scenario.

Spread the Word: Retail Minus Is Recognized by the TCA

It is well-known fact that the infrastructure and transaction costs are quite high for the undertakings who operates in the broadband internet access services market. Thus, it is crystal clear that the recent regulations of the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (“ICTA”) do not help to change this fact by imposing heavy legislative burden to the market players. Approximately one year ago, Vodafone applied to the Turkish Competition Authority (“TCA”) to request an exemption for the agreement which stipulates network sharing on the wholesale fiber data stream access and support services with Superonline. After a yearlong examination, the TCA decided to grant the individual exemption to the agreement. But most importantly, the retail minus method is recognized by the TCA for the first time.

On domain registries and unlawful website content

The link of lawful domain names to unlawful content is a phenomenon that has not been very topical until recently. Traditionally, domain registries have been off the radar of content-related debates. Enforcement efforts, public discourse and academic research have focused on other intermediaries such as Internet access service providers, hosting platforms, and websites that link to content. This article shows, however, that the (secondary) liability of domain registries and registrars, and more specifically country code top-level domain (ccTLD) registries for website content, has been tested in several EU Member States in recent years. The article investigates tendencies in the national lower-court jurisprudence and explores to what extent the liability exemption regime of the E-Commerce Directive applies to domain registries. The analysis concludes that whereas domain registries can be read under the exemptions in a teleological interpretation, more clarity is desirable.

Net Neutrality and Investment in the US: A Review of Evidence from the 2018 Restoring Internet Freedom Order

Abstract In 2018, the Federal Communications Commission’s Restoring Internet Freedom Order reversed its 2015 decision to apply common carrier regulation to broadband Internet access services under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. Empirical evidence indicating negative investment effects of the regulation played a key role in this reversal, though the quantification of these investment effects were a matter of substantial controversy. This article surveys the studies cited in the recent decision and the Commission’s scrutiny of them. In all, the Commission considered eight primary works but relied on only two of them, a culling process that relied on four principles: (1) simply comparing outcomes before-and-after an event is not a valid impact analysis; (2) before-and-after comparisons are more probative if regression analysis is used to condition the outcomes by accounting for potentially relevant factors like economic growth, sales, and so forth; (3) the causal effects of a regulation are best determined with reference to a counterfactual; and (4) the application of proper methods does not excuse the use of bad data. These principles are mostly uncontroversial and are consistent with the modern practice of impact analysis.

Workshop on internet economics (WIE2017) final report

On December 13-14 2017, CAIDA hosted the 8th interdisciplinary Workshop on Internet Economics (WIE) at the UC San Diego's Supercomputer Center. This workshop series provides a forum for researchers, Internet facilities and service providers, technologists, economists, theorists, policy makers, and other stakeholders to exchange views on current and emerging regulatory and policy debates. The FCC's expected decision (released during the workshop, on 14 December 2017) - to repeal the 2015 classification of broadband Internet access service as a telecommunications (common carrier) service - set the stage for vigorous discussion on what type of data can inform debate, development, and empirical evaluation of public policies we will need for Internet services in the future. http://www.caida.org/workshops/wie/1712/.

Mobile broadband internet access service is a commercial mobile service, and hence must be regulated as a common carrier service

ABSTRACTThe FCC’s Restoring Internet Freedom Order reclassified mobile broadband service from a commercial mobile radio service to a private mobile radio service, thereby eliminating common carrier regulation of the service. The reclassification is an incredible assertion: that the most important public mobile service of our time is classified under statute as a private mobile service. We analyze the relevant precedent from the 1940s through 2017. We find that the Order’s lack of consideration of the relevant precedent and technology undermines its interpretation of the statute on which it relies. The Order’s reversion to the 1994 definitions of public switched network and interconnected service ignores the growth of the public switched network to include the Internet. The Order’s conclusion that the public switched telephone network and the Internet are separate non-interconnected networks is factually wrong. Critically, when interpreting interconnection, the Order ignores the fact that in order for meaningful communication to occur, the users’ devices and subscribed services must be compatible. A proper interpretation of relevant statute and precedent leads to the opposite conclusion of the Order, that mobile broadband service is a commercial mobile service. This finding lays the foundation for reinstatement of net neutrality protections on mobile broadband service.

A new direction for the net neutrality debate

In recent years, the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) has become a microcosm of the political battles in Congress. The Democratic-controlled Wheeler Commission entitled its Net Neutrality Order “Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet.” Not to be outdone, the Republican-controlled Pai Commission that overturned that Order entitled its own “Restoring `Internet Freedom.” And like Congressional pronouncements, Commissioners look to grab headlines with dramatic statements of impending doom if their policies are not enacted. We show that the untold societal damage that both sides claim have relatively little to no factual support. Outmoded distinctions between information and telecommunications services exacerbate the situation because a good deal of regulatory history is built on them. As a potential way forward toward reliance on theoretically-sound, evidence-based decision-making, the authors recommend moving away from the silo mentality of focusing on whether particular services are information services or telecommunications services (e.g., Broadband Internet Access Service (BIAS)) toward a focus on packet transmission across broadband networks. Such an approach would facilitate fresh perspectives with the objective of more collaborative, less confrontational regulatory decision-making.

A Cloud-based platform for the emulation of complex cybersecurity scenarios

In the last few years, cybersecurity has become a hot topic because of the ever-increasing availability of Internet accessible services driven by the diffusion of connected devices. The consequent exposition to cyber threats demands for suitable methodologies, techniques and tools allowing to adequately handle issues arising in such a complex domain. This paper describes the architecture of SmallWorld, a scalable software platform designed to reproduce realistic scenarios achieved by the immersion of real systems into a software defined virtual environment. SmallWorld enables the assessment, teaching and learning of cybersecurity related aspects in different areas and for various purposes. It exploits innovative and state-of-the-art virtualization and simulation techniques for reproducing in a realistic setting a dynamic environment where large distributed computer systems can be deployed and from where they can interact with real life entities. One of the main features of SmallWorld is the support for designing and building complex scenarios which are dynamic and reactive and where a number of autonomous software agents can be deployed. Agents are able to reproduce the behaviors of human users and/or malicious applications into a SmallWorld scenario making it a more realistic testing environment. The practical use of SmallWorld is shown by means of two realistic case studies.

INTERNET: MODELS, TECHNOLOGIES, ACCESS SPEED, PROSPECTS

Background. Open multiservice network of telecommunications the Internet has become the most used source of such vital information as: scientific and technical, information, entertainment, and, especially, commercial. Today, it unites 3.36 billion users and provides high economic efficiency of human activity. However, there are many different technologies for accessing Internet services that compete with each other. Objective. The aim of the paper is to create the Internet network model and a content access model, as the main value of the network from the point of view of the end user, for building an effective network infrastructure. Methods. Analysis of all known publications on the construction and evaluation of Internet service quality parameters. Analysis of technologies for accessing the network and content. Synthesis of the model of formation and distribution of traffic between levels of the hierarchy of the Internet. Results. Enlarged indicators of Internet services provision were received. An enlarged scheme for building a global Internet network is proposed. Based on the generalized end-to-end scheme of user access to services and network resources, an estimate of the amount of sufficient access speed was obtained. The concepts of hierarchy level and gravitational coefficient are defined for which mathematical relations are derived. Conclusions. The main task of the providers of any level is to close the traffic as close as possible to the client, i.e. to reduce the gravity coefficient. The task of theoreticians and engineers is to determine theoretically the optimal number of levels (there were only three of them in the model in question) of closure or aggregation of traffic. Keywords: Internet; access network; quality indicator; availability indicator; access speed.

A fresh look at zero-rating

We provide an economic assessment of zero-rating offers in the context of mobile internet access services and draw six lessons: (1) Zero-rating can have several different characteristics that crucially affect their economic and welfare assessment. Thus, regulatory interventions must be based on a careful case-by-case analysis. (2) In the context of zero-rating offers, it is often crucial to evaluate the extent to which users are able to activate and deactivate a (throttled) zero-rated tariff option. If activation/deactivation is easy and instantaneous, a sound economic theory of harm for consumers will in many cases be hard to establish. (3) Similarly, if access to zero-rated partner programs is non-discriminatory and entails low barriers to entry, a sound theory of harm for content providers will usually not be given. (4) Zero-rating can be beneficial for consumers and (legal) content providers alike by contributing to a reduction of illegal content. Combined with throttling it can mitigate congestion problems. However, by requiring all content belonging to the same content category to be treated equally with respect to throttling, independent of whether a content provider opted for zero-rating or not, the existing regulation creates a negative externality on those content providers that do not wish to be zero-rated for some reason. (5) Particular attention should be paid to the impact of throttled zero-rating tariffs on the competition between mobile network operators (MNOs) and MVNOs. The latter may not be able to compete on equal footing with MNOs, because they benefit less from the traffic management aspects of zero-rating. (6) Competition among (infrastructure-based) ISPs provides a safeguard against severe rent extraction and, thus, an abuse of throttling and zero-rating as an exploitative device. Therefore, regulators should carefully account for the competitive environment and the existing tariff portfolio and options before deciding to intervene. Competition policy, rather than ex-ante regulation, may be more suitable for this task.

Mathematical Algorithm for Processing Measurement Results of Internet Access Service in the Scope of Net Neutrality

Abstract Since Regulation (EU) 2015/2120 of the European Parliament and of the Council came into force, Internet service providers have to fulfill various additional requirements in order to guarantee access to the open internet and provide transparent information to the end-users. Of the utmost importance is to ensure achievable, meaningful and comparable results of the internet quality indicators, particularly upload and download speed values. Regulation (EU) 2015/2120 stipulates that specific speeds should be indicated in the contracts: for fixed internet access service those are maximum, minimum, normally available and advertised speed and for mobile internet access service – estimated maximum and advertised speed. However, there are no common methods put in place to calculate required speed indicators that can lead to a large amount of noncomparable and unreviewable information and create difficulties for internet providers to describe quality indicators. Within the framework of the present research, a mathematical estimation algorithm has been elaborated and applied in order to ensure that required quality parameters are represented objectively and that they are intercomparable among different internet service providers. Unified calculation principle would foster end-user awareness of the meaning of quality indicators and also of the quality of received internet services. It would also facilitate the indication of the required information for internet service providers.

Characterizing and Predicting Users’ Behavior on Local Search Queries

The use of queries to find products and services that are located nearby is increasing rapidly due mainly to the ubiquity of internet access and location services provided by smartphone devices. Local search engines help users by matching queries with a predefined geographical connotation (“local queries”) against a database of local business listings. Local search differs from traditional Web search because, to correctly capture users’ click behavior, the estimation of relevance between query and candidate results must be integrated with geographical signals, such as distance. The intuition is that users prefer businesses that are physically closer to them or in a convenient area (e.g., close to their home). However, this notion of closeness depends upon other factors, like the business category, the quality of the service provided, the density of businesses in the area of interest, the hour of the day, or even the day of the week. In this work, we perform an extensive analysis of online users’ interactions with a local search engine, investigating their intent, temporal patterns, and highlighting relationships between distance-to-business and other factors, such as business reputation, Furthermore, we investigate the problem of estimating the click-through rate on local search ( LCTR ) by exploiting the combination of standard retrieval methods with a rich collection of geo-, user-, and business-dependent features. We validate our approach on a large log collected from a real-world local search service. Our evaluation shows that the non-linear combination of business and user information, geo-local and textual relevance features leads to a significant improvements over existing alternative approaches based on a combination of relevance, distance, and business reputation [1].

Zero-rating arrangements of mobile Internet access service providers – An analysis of main factors shaping the need for regulatory interventions

Zero-rating is the practice of providers of radio-based Internet access for moving telecommunication devices of excluding traffic generated by specific online applications from usage counted towards capped allowances or strictly metered tariffs of their end customers. Worldwide and particularly in the European Union (EU), current regulatory frameworks for zero-rating arrangements (ZRA) imply that regulators have to examine on a case-by-case basis whether they prohibit a concrete ZRA or impose restrictions. Such conditions are set because regulators believe that a ZRA runs counter to the interests of end customers or application providers or impedes effective competition between application and Internet service providers. Thus, it is necessary to clarify which case features ought to be inspected in such zero-rating assessments and which feature levels speak against or in favor of regulatory measures linked to ZRA. The present article identifies nine design features of ZRA, three characteristics of customer groups targeted by such offers and three background characteristics of the markets for Internet access services and applications which are of special importance in decisions concerning the need to regulate (to abstain from regulating) zero-rating practices of mobile network operators. The analysis shows that in many instances interests of end customers, application providers as well as of politicians seeking to promote the competitive dynamics on mobile Internet access service and application markets are best served if regulatory authorities tolerate ZRA and control for potential harmful effects after their market launch. Moreover, the study reveals that empirical research on customer reactions to ZRA is urgently required.

Is Bandung Wifi Juara Program Success?

The purpose of this study was to determine the public perception of Bandung Juara Wifi program 2013-2015. In this research, there are attributes Bandung Juara Wifi used to determine the public perception that consists of Internet access services, internet access tool, the cost of internet access, internet access time and service packs. The sampling technique used in this research is purposive sampling so as to produce the 400 respondents who answered the questionnaire. This research data analysis technique is univariate data analysis techniques. The results of this study stated that overall public perception of the Bandung Juara Wifi is good. But needs to be improved on one attribute, namely, the services pack by improving the speed and stability of the Internet that are owned by Bandung Juara Wifi.

Zero-Rating and Net Neutrality in the Mobile Market: The Case of Japan

Net neutrality has two aspects: how to efficiently allocate scarce network resources to each application, and how to discipline the dominant market power of Broadband Internet Access Service (BIAS) operators. These aspects are interrelated rather than independent. If the market is competitive enough, as the Japanese fixed broadband market is and as the FCC is attempting to ensure, market dynamism ensures efficient allocation of resources. However, direct intervention is required if the broadband market is not competitive. The Title II order implicitly assumed that the BIAS market is not competitive. One of the recently debated topics is “zero-rating,” which allows subscribers to access certain content or applications without having that traffic count against their data cap. By offering zero-rating, BIAS providers can prioritize certain content/applications, and thus distort content and application (CAP) competition. This distortion may hurt the business prospects of CAP startups, and benefit giant CAPs with financial strength. However, zero-rating can change the competitive framework in the BIAS market by widening the dimensions along which firms can compete, and can thus ultimately help small players take over part of the market share of incumbents. While the former impact of zero-rating gives additional reasons for governmental intervention from the viewpoint of net neutrality, the latter, if fully realized, calls for the adoption of a market-based, or light-touch approach. To the best of the author’s knowledge, most studies have hitherto focused on the former and ignored the latter. In order to analyze the latter impact of zero-rating, the author conducted two web-based questionnaire surveys, in May, 2016 and in January, 2018, and analyzed mobile broadband usage in Japan, in cases where mobile virtual network operators have not been able to compete well with incumbent mobile network operators. This paper focuses on how Internet users perceive “net neutrality,” how consumers design their mobile broadband usage, how users behave when they hit data caps, and so on. In addition, the author used random utility theory to empirically estimate the competitive impact of the introduction of zero-rating in the mobile broadband market. The preliminary outcome suggests that consumers may treat zero-rating as a substitute for an increased monthly cap, and not perceive any benefit in quality-degraded video services even if traffic is not counted against their monthly cap. Interestingly, Japanese consumers value zero-rated music more than zero-rated “not-degraded” videos, perhaps due to their commuting style and the popularity of free TV programs. It is also clear that zero-rating does significantly attract consumers, especially video/music lovers, but, on its own, is not strong enough to threaten the dominance of incumbent players. These findings will have direct impacts on mobile operators’ service configurations, and will help policymakers design a policy package to boost competitiveness in the mobile broadband market, which is crucial to maintain light-touch regulations for net neutrality. Although these findings are derived from the Japanese market, the author believes that stakeholders in other countries can also use this paper’s methodology to analyze the impacts of offering zero-rating and/or increasing data caps.

On Domain Registries and Website Content – Shift in Intermediaries' Role in Light of Unlawful Content or Just Another Brick in the Wall?

The link of lawful domain names to unlawful content is a phenomenon that has not been very topical until recently. Traditionally, domain registries have been off the radar of content-related debates. Enforcement efforts, public discourse and academic research have focused on other intermediaries such as Internet access service providers, hosting platforms, and websites that link to content. This article shows that in recent years, however, that the (secondary) liability of domain registries and registrars, and more specifically country code top-level domain (ccTLD) registries for website content, has been tested in several EU Member States. The article investigates tendencies in the national lower-court jurisprudence and explores to what extent the liability exemption regime of the E-Commerce Directive applies to domain registries. The analysis concludes that whereas domain registries can be read under the exemptions in a teleological interpretation, more clarity is desirable.

Use of internet services and resources by academics in Adamawa State, Nigeria

This study investigated the type of internet services and resources available to academics in Adamawa State, Nigeria. The survey research method was employed for this study. The population for this study consists of all the lecturers in Adamawa State University (ADSU) Mubi, American University of Nigeria (AUN) Yola and Modibbo Adama University of Technology (MAUTech) Yola. Krejcie and Morgan table for determining sampling was used to arrive at a sample size of 265 lecturers from a population of 847. The research instrument used for collecting data for this study was a self-designed questionnaire. Descriptive statistics was used in analyzing the data collected. Findings revealed e-mail, file/document transfer, newsgroup, discussion groups among other types of internet services and resources available to academics in Adamawa state. It was also revealed that cyber cafe is mostly used by academics to access internet services and resources while, the purposes for accessing Internet services and resources were teaching, research, communication, collaboration and publication. The study recommended that effective wireless connection should be provided both in libraries and the entire campus environment so that academics can have unhindered access to internet services and resources for their academic activities. Keywords: internet services, internet resources, adamawa, academics, use