EDUCAUSE | Contributed by Organizations or Campuses; Articles, Papers, and Reports; and Broadband Access and Pricing

FCC wants to know: Is degrading P2P traffic 'reasonable'?

ckeller — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 11:18:40 -0600

"As foreshadowed at the Consumer Electronics Show last week, federal regulators this week took the first formal step into investigating complaints about how Internet service providers, such as Comcast, manage peer-to-peer file-sharing traffic on their networks "

Mounting Peer-to-Peer Pressure for Comcast

ckeller — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 10:47:30 -0600

"Comcast's traffic-filtering efforts are the subject of FCC complaints and a lawsuit. At issue: ISPs right to control the flow of data over their networks"

Comcast Blocks Some Internet Traffic

ckeller — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:26:24 -0500

Comcast has been blocking the sharing of certain files on their users network as a means of managing its network to keep file-sharing traffic from swallowing too much bandwidth and affecting the Internet speeds of other subscribers.

FTC Nixes Net Neutrality

ckeller — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 09:54:02 -0500

Consumers Should Trust the Marketplace, Regulators Purr.

New Coalition Touts National Broadband Policy

drupal — Wed, 30 May 2007 10:41:25 -0500

"A broad coalition of some of the Internet's leading brand names, public advocacy groups and grassroots organizations called on Congress today to immediately adopt a national broadband policy. The goal, the group said, is universal, affordable broadband for all Americans."

The Debate on Net Neutrality: A Policy Perspective

drupal — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 12:30:07 -0600

Whether to legislate to maintain "net neutrality", the current status quo of prohibiting broadband service providers from charging online websites for preferential access to theirresidential and commercial customers, has become a subject under fierce debate. We develop a stylized game-theoretic model to address two critical issues of the net neutrality: (1) who are gainers and losers of abandoning net neutrality, and (2) willbroadband service providers have greater incentive to expand their capacity without net neutrality.

We find that if the principle of net neutrality is abandoned, the broadband service provider definitely stands to gain from the arrangement, as a result of extracting the preferential access fees from the content providers. The content providers are thus left worse off, mirroring the stances of the two sides in the debate. Depending on parameter values in our framework, consumer surplus either does not change or is higher, and in the latter case, while a majority of consumers are better off, a minority of them is left worse off with larger wait times to access their preferred content. The social welfare increases when compared to the baseline case under net neutrality when one content provider pays for preferential treatment, but remains unchanged when both content providers pay. We also find that the incentive for the broadband service provider to expand under net neutrality is unambiguously higher than under the no net neutrality regime. This goes against the assertion of the broadband service providers that under net neutrality, they have limited incentive to expand.

The Case for Preserving Network Neutrality

drupal — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 16:14:19 -0500

This report makes the case for promoting innovation and competition by upholding the principles of network neutrality that have governed the Internet since its inception.

Boucher: Net neutrality Stalls Broadband Measure

drupal — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 11:50:26 -0500

"The debate over network neutrality could be resolved if the United States were to follow the lead of Japan, Korea and other countries in ensuring that high-speed Internet access is widely available to the general population, said Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.)."

Broadband Reality Check II

drupal — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 16:42:55 -0500

Broadband Reality Check II exposes the truth behind America's digital decline: A failed policy that has left Americans with higher prices, slower speeds and no choices for Internet service.

Reality behind the 'Net-neutrality' debate

drupal — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 16:57:43 -0500

The author discusses the issues of U.S. broadband policy and how it relates to the current net neutrality debate.