DIMACS TR: 99-08
The Economics of the Internet: Utility,
Utilization, Pricing, and Quality of Service
Author: Andrew Odlyzko
ABSTRACT
Can high quality be provided economically for all transmissions
on the Internet? Current work assumes that it cannot, and
concentrates on providing differentiated service levels. However,
an examination of patterns of use and economics of data networks
suggests that providing
enough bandwidth for uniformly high quality transmission may be practical.
If this turns out not to be possible, only the simplest schemes that
require minimal involvement by end users and network administrators
are likely to be accepted. On the other hand,
there are substantial inefficiencies in the current data networks,
inefficiencies that can be alleviated even without complicated pricing or
network engineering systems.
Paper Available at:
ftp://dimacs.rutgers.edu/pub/dimacs/TechnicalReports/TechReports/1999/99-08.ps.gz
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