Internet Service Providers, or ISPs, like any other rational entity make decisions to maximize their profit. While some of their decisions are on how to attract customers, they inevitably need to control how much resources consumers utilize. In this dissertation, we focus on two different aspects of ISP's decisions, including bandwidth allocation and pricing techniques through which ISPs manage allotting their limited capacity to users with high demand, and zero-rating, which can be one of the tools through which the ISP can attract customers. For bandwidth allocation, this dissertation discusses the data plans available for each user's monthly billing cycle. Within those, the ISPs guarantee a fixed amount of data at high rates until a byte threshold is reached, at which point the user's data rate is throttled to a lower rate for the remainder of the cycle. In practice, the thresholds and rates of throttling can appear and may be somewhat arbitrary. In this dissertation, we evaluate the choice of threshold and rate as an optimization problem (regret minimization) and demonstrate that intuitive formulations of client regret, which preserve desirable fairness properties, lead to optimization problems that have tractably computable solutions. For zero-rating options in the ISP market, and their relation to net neutrality, we begin by introducing the concept of zero-rating, which refers to the practice of providing free Internet access to some users under certain conditions, and usually concurs with differentiation among users or content providers. Even though zero-rating is banned in some countries (India, Canada), others have either taken no stance or explicitly allowed it (South Africa, Kenya, U.S.). While there is broad agreement that preserving the content quality of service falls under the purview of net neutrality, the role of differential pricing, especially the practice of \emph{zero-rating} remains controversial. An objective of net neutrality is to design regulations for the Internet and ensure that it remains a public, open platform where innovations can thrive. We show the practice of zero-rating does not agree with that. This dissertation shows how ISPs could make zero-rating decisions to attract customers, and then show how these decisions may negatively impact the market and customer welfare, which necessitates the existence of some zero-rating regulations.

THE INTERNET AND THE PROTECTION OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY-THE SCOPE OF LIABILITY OF INDIVIDUAL PERSONS WITHIN THE LAW OF THE EUROPEAN COMUNITIES AND THE USA Internet service providers' (or online service providers') liability for the copyright infringement incurred by an individual user of the Internet is not an absolutely new issue anymore. Not later than in 1998, the U.S. legislators enact the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). This amendment to the US copyright law introduces the concept of ,,safe harbor" that limits the online service providers' liability when they act only as a passive conduit and at the same time they do not have actual knowledge of the copyright infringement incurred through their systems. In the absence of such actual knowledge, they may not be aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent. Furthermore, an Online service provider is obliged upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness (e.g. by obtaining a notice), to act expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material. This requirement is well known as a ,,take down notice procedure". As a response to the U.S. regulation, in 2000, the European Commission and the European parliament pass the ,,so called" E-commerce directive regulating the liability of above mentioned subjects in...

Today's popular over-the-top (OTT) video streaming services such as YouTube, Netflix and Hulu deliver video contents to viewers using adaptive bitrate (ABR) technologies. In ABR streaming, a video player running on a viewer's device adaptively changes bitrates to match given network conditions. However, providing reliable streaming is challenging. First, an ABR player may select an inappropriate bitrate during playback due to the lack of direct knowledge of access networks, frequent user mobility and rapidly changing channel conditions. Second, OTT content is delivered to viewers without any cooperation with Internet service providers (ISPs). Last, there are no appropriate tools that evaluate the performance of ABR streaming along with video quality of experience (QoE). This thesis describes how to improve the video QoE of OTT video streaming services using ABR technologies. Our analysis starts from understanding ABR heuristics. How does ABR streaming work? What factors does an ABR player consider when switching bitrates during a download? Then, we propose our solutions to improve existing ABR streaming from the perspective of network operators who deliver video content through their networks and video service providers who build ABR players running on viewers' devices. From the network operators' point of view, we propose to find a better video content server based on round trip times (RTTs) between an edge node of a wireless network and available video content servers when a viewer requests a video. The edge node can be an Internet Service Provider (ISP) router in a Wi-Fi network and a packet data network gateway (P-GW) in a 4G network. During the experiments, our solution showed better TCP performance (e.g., higher TCP throughput during playback) 146 times out of 200 experiments (73%) over Wi-Fi networks and 162 times out of 200 experiments (81%) over 3G networks. In addition, we claim that the wireless edge nodes can assist an ABR video player in selecting the best available bitrate by controlling the available bandwidth in the radio access network between a base station and a viewer's device. In our Wi-Fi testbed, the proposed solution saved up to 21% of radio bandwidth on mobile devices and enhanced the viewing experience by reducing rebufferings during playback. Last, we assert that software-defined networking (SDN) can improve video QoE by dynamically controlling routing paths of video streaming flows based on the provisioned networking information collected from SDN-enabled networking devices. Using an off-the-shelf SDN platform, we showed that our proposed solution can reduce rebufferings by 50% and provide higher bitrates during a download. From the perspective of video service providers, higher video QoE can be achieved by improving ABR heuristics implemented in an ABR player. To support this idea, we investigated the role of playout buffer size in ABR streaming and its impact on video QoE. Through our video QoE survey, we proved that a large buffer does not always outperform a small buffer, especially under rapidly varying network conditions. Based on this finding, we suggest to dynamically change the maximum buffer size in an ABR player depending on the current capacity of its playout buffer for improving the QoE of viewers. During the experiments, our proposed solution improved the viewing experience by offering 15% higher average played bitrate, 70% fewer bitrate changes and 50% shorter rebuffering duration. Our experimental results show that even small changes of ABR heuristics and new features of network systems can greatly affect video QoE. However, it is still difficult for video service providers or network operators to evaluate new ABR heuristics or network system changes due to lack of accurate QoE monitoring systems. In order to solve this issue, we have developed YouSlow ("YouTube Too Slow!? - YouSlow") as a new approach to monitoring video QoE for the analysis of ABR performance. The lightweight web browser plug-in and mobile application are designed to monitor various playback events (e.g., rebuffering duration and frequency of bitrate changes) directly from within ABR video players and calculate statistics along with video QoE. Using YouSlow, we investigate the impact of the above playback events on video abandonment: about 10% of viewers abandoned the YouTube videos when the pre-roll ads lasted for 15 seconds. Even increasing the bitrate can annoy viewers; they prefer a high starting bitrate with no bitrate changes during playback. Our regression analysis shows that bitrate changes do not affect video abandonment significantly and the abandonment rate can be estimated accurately using the rebuffering ratio and the number of rebufferings. The thesis includes four main contributions. First, we investigate today's popular OTT video streaming services (e.g., YouTube and Netflix) that use ABR streaming technologies. Second, we propose to build QoS and QoE aware video streaming that can be implemented in existing wireless networks (e.g., Wi-Fi, 3G and 4G) and in SDN-enabled networks. Third, we propose to improve current ABR heuristics by dynamically changing the playout buffer size under varying network conditions. Last, we designed and implemented a new monitoring system for measuring video QoE.

The Internet does not currently provide end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees across multiple network providers. We demonstrate that networks. by using dynamic pricing, can provide end-to-end QoS guarantees for those applications that need it. We propose the concept of QoS-Transit Services: a set of primitive services offered by an Internet Service Provider (ISP) in order to deliver packets with statistical performance guarantees within its network, using dynamic pricing. ISPs can choose their own pricing schemes, as long as QoS is guaranteed. Through simulation, we demonstrate that even simple pricing mechanisms can guarantee the advertised performance of a QoS-Transit Service. End-to-end QoS across multiple networks is achieved by using multiple QoS¬Transit Services, from different ISPs, in sequence. Since QoS-Transit Services are offered by ISPs to generate revenues. we determine how to allocate bandwidth among the services in order to maximize revenue. assuming that demand functions can be estimated. We propose the IterLP and IterGreedy heuristics to determine the optimal allocation of bandwidth on predefined paths. IterLP achieves revenue close to 99% of the optimal solution. achieving this result quickly. IterGreedy achieves 90-95% optimality, but executes faster than IterLP. Additionally, to determine the paths on which to route the QoS-Transit Services so as to maximize the ISP's revenue, we propose three heuristics with different specific advantages: Service Grouping. Iterative Bottleneck Avoidance, and Iterative Bottleneck Avoidance with Tabu. We demonstrate that Iterative Bottleneck Avoidance with Tabu achieves approximately 98% of an optimal solution. Route selection is also shown to be more important when fewer QoS-Transit Services are offered. When demand functions cannot be adequately estimated. an ISP can use our Iterative Allocation Adjustment heuristic to find the optimal allocation of bandwidth for a set QoS-Transit Services. The heuristic achieves over 95% of the optimal revenue for an ISP. We then examine how better routes can be identified by valuing the links in the network to identify rerouting possibilities, or to identify paths for new QoS-Transit Services. To receive a specified end-to-end QoS, customers may use concatenated QoS-Transit Services. We propose the Hub Charging Model to provide scalable charging, using Brokers as middle-men. Additionally, we propose the concept of Overlay ISPs: ISPs that provide QoS-Transit Services by controlling an overlay network. An Overlay ISP, a type of virtual network operator, can offer QoS over a large geographic area without universal ISP support for QoS-Transit Services. Finally, we detail an architecture for offering QoS-Transit Services using existing protocol standards. By using a Broker-ISP as an intermediary between customers and the 1SPs offering QoS-Transit Services, routing and charging complexities can be hidden from the customers. Additionally we describe how security, billing, metering. and policing can be achieved. The competitive environment assumed within this dissertation is now emerging, with ISPs charging content providers in order to deliver content at a superior quality level to the ISP's customers. The time is therefore ripe for dynamic pricing to be deployed.

Thesis (LL. M.)--University of Toronto, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Info.Tech.-Res.)--University of Wollongong, 2008. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references: leaf 234-245.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 149-150).

[pt] O mercado brasileiro de provedores de acesso à internet tem apresentado um crescimento vertiginoso desde 1998 e está vivenciando um período de crescente concentração. Num momento em que a disputa pelos consumidores está cada vez mais acirrada, os esforços para a manutenção da base de clientes se tornam tão importantes quanto aqueles destinados à conquista de novos consumidores. Nesse contexto, a preocupação com a fidelidade dos usuários de provedores de acesso à internet adquire especial relevância. O presente estudo se propõe a investigar as dificuldades encontradas na fidelização dos clientes de provedores de acesso e analisar o tipo de fidelidade exibida por esses, valendo-se do framework proposto por Richard Oliver (1999) como principal referência para a classificação da fidelidade. / [en] The Brazilian market of access suppliers the InterNet has presented a vertiginous growth since 1998 and this having lived deeply one periodo of increasing concentracao. At a moment where the dispute for the consumers this each incited time more, the esforcos for manutencao of the base of important customers if becomes tao how much those destined the conquest of new consumers. In this context, preocupacao with the allegiance of the usuarios of access suppliers the InterNet acquires special relevancia. The present study if propoe to investigate the difficulties found in fidelizacao of the customers of access suppliers and to analyze the type of allegiance shown for these, using itself framework considered by Richard Oliver (1999) as main referencia for classificacao of the allegiance. / [es] EL mercado brasilero de proveedores de acceso a la internet ha presentado un crescimiento vertiginoso desde 1998 y está vive ahora un período de cresciente concentración. En un momento en que la disputa por los consumidores está cada vez más fuerte, los esfuerzos para mantener la base de clientes resultan tan importantes cuanto los destinados a la conquista de nuevos consumidores. En ese contexto, la preocupación con la fidelidad de los usuarios de proveedores de acceso a la internet adquire uma especial relevancia. EL presente estudio se propone investigar las dificuldades encontradas en la fidelización de los clientes de proveedores de acceso y analizar el tipo de fidelidad que ellos exhiben, utilizando el framework propuesto por Richard Oliver (1999) como principal referencia para la clasificación de la fidelidad.

M.Ing. / The development of Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) technologies offers a novel platform for IP-based service resale via Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) that provide high network coverage and lower infrastructure cost. In this IP-based service resale business, the Access Point (AP) providers sets their pricing policies as IP-based service resellers to maximize their profits, while the resale-users (end users of the WMNs) who are price- and quality-of-service (QoS)- sensitive, respond to AP providers’ pricing policies by controlling their usage. This research exploits the efficiency of dynamic pricing by integrating pricing into best effort based WMNs as an economic control tool to optimize the profit of the AP providers and improve the utilization of their limited uplink bandwidth by taking into consideration the resale-users’ price- and QoS- sensitivity. Two cases are presented in this thesis: a monopoly, where a single AP provider aims to maximize its profit while guaranteeing its resale-users with a minimum allocated bandwidth; and a duopoly, where two AP providers compete to maximize their individual profits based on the resale-users’ price- and delay- sensitivity. For both cases, the limited uplink bandwidth of the AP providers is considered as a bottleneck of the WMN. We propose two dynamic pricing models for these two cases respectively and investigate how pricing depends on the assumptions that we make about the market. Indeed, the pricing model proposed for the monopoly is a preliminary study for the duopoly pricing model. In formulating and analyzing these two pricing models, we see how prices are driven by the profit-maximizing aim of one AP provider and the competition between two AP providers.

M. Tech. Business Administration / The purpose of this study is two-fold ; to establish how different demograhic profiles utilise the internet and classifies internet functions mostly used across demographic characteristics. Data was collected through a self-completion structured questionnaire from a sample of 131 households at Menlyn Park Shopping Centre in the City of Tshwane.