NetSE: Small: Collaborative Research: The economics of transit and peering interconnections in the Internet

Georgia Tech Research Corporation, Atlanta GA

Investigators

Abstract

Despite growing interest in the economic aspects of the Internet, such as network interconnection (peering), pricing, performance, and the profitability of various network types, two historical developments contribute to a persistent disconnect between economic models and actual operational practices on the Internet. First, the Internet became too complex -- in traffic dynamics, topology, and economics -- for currently available analytical tools to allow realistic modeling. Second, the data needed to parameterize more realistic models is simply not available. The problem is fundamental, and familiar: simple models are not valid, and complex models cannot be validated. This project aims to achieve transformative progress in studying economic aspects of the Internet -- network interconnection (peering), pricing, and the profitability of various network types -- by creating more powerful, empirically parameterized computational tools, and enabling broader validation than previously possible. This project will involve measurement of key properties that impact Internet infrastructure economics, such as interdomain traffic, topology dynamics, routing policies and peering practices. These measurements will serve as inputs to a computational model of network interconnection and dynamics. The investigators will validate the model's ability to reproduce known macroscopic properties of the Internet topology, and its ability to reproduce known historical trends in the evolution of the Internet. The investigators will then use the model to study various "what-if" scenarios relating to interdomain interconnection practices, the stability and dynamics of interdomain peering links, and economic properties of provisioning Internet infrastructure. The intellectual merit of this project lies in an approach grounded in empirical measurements of macroscopic Internet topology, traffic demand, routing policies, and peering policies. The data promise to reveal important, and thus far elusive, insights into the economic implications of topology dynamics, interdomain traffic characteristics, and routing policy, but they will also inform the parameterization of a model of network interconnection incentives and dynamics. The broader impact of this project lies in deeper, empirically grounded interpretation of available data on the most opaque sub-discipline of network research -- internetwork economics. The educational side of the project will integrate Internet economics in two Georgia Tech courses, while a PostDoc and a PhD student will graduate as experts in this nascent sub-discipline of Internet research. The data and methods developed during the course of this project will be publicly available and regularly presented to both the research community as well as operator and policy forums, e.g., NANOG, FCC.