Viability of internet ecosystem

Abstract

Internet ecosystem consists of a lot of individual entities having different roles such as Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Content Providers (CPs), Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) and End-users (EUs). The entities have competitive as well as cooperative interactions because they are rational players interested in maximizing their individual profits. However, such selfish behaviors often lead to techno-economic inefficiencies throughout Internet ecosystem such as unstable peering and revenue imbalance. In this paper, we capture and analyze the interactions based on the game theoretic approaches. Our primary focus is on the study of the impact of traffic scheduling policies on the stability of the ISPs’cooperation. In sequence, our second work analyzes the impacts of the emergence of Telco-CDNs and their cooperation on the traditional CDN market. Finally, we investigate the impact of different degrees of the cooperation among ISPs and EUs on the stability of user-centric networks. Consequently, this dissertation contributes on understanding the Internet ecosystem by the analysis of competition and cooperation among the selfish technical entities based on game theoretic approach.