The goal of this project is to incorporate key elements of telecommunication policy and economics into Internet architecture. As a result of technical, economic and public policy forces, the Internet's original design principles -- layering and end-to-end -- are increasingly violated. Internet Service Providers are deploying quality of service mechanisms, but only allowing their use for certain applications sold to their own subscribers. Some Internet Service Providers have used deep packet inspection techniques to implement traffic management practices that throttle or block peer-to-peer applications.
To counteract this deterioration, this project will propose an interdisciplinary approach to update the Internet architectural principles to account for telecommunications policy and economics. The project will identify the flaws of the end-to-end and layering models that are not withstanding the technical, economic, and legal forces upon networking; modify these models so that they promote good technical design, respond appropriately to economic pressures, and encourage beneficial outcomes that benefit society; and validate these new models and illustrate their potential use by applying them to three case studies -- net neutrality, traffic management, and Quality of Service.
This research will have a broad impact. The P.I. is developing an undergraduate course on ?The Internet and Public Policy?. This research will help bridge the gulf that exists between communication lawmakers and networking researchers by informing staff members in the United States Congress about the technical aspects of telecommunication issues, and by developing an architectural framework for the networking research community to help them consider impacts of network economics and law.
