Abstract :
For publication date: December 2016. The Internet is a conglomeration of several network service providers. The monetary interactions among them, and with other users of their services, are largely governed by their economic interests and can impact the socio-economic role of the Internet. Thus, it is necessary to study the interplay between various entities in the Internet, and understand the influence of pricing strategies of an entity on those of the others, and the effects on end users. The past few years have seen many public debates and legislation initiatives concerning access to the global Internet. Some of the central issues concerned the possibility for the Internet service providers (ISPs) to offer preferential treatment to content providers (CPs) at a premium. Much of this debate took place in anticipation of the legislation over Network Neutrality, and several public consultations were launched in 2010 (e.g., in the USA, France, and the EU). Network Neutrality (net neutrality in short) asserts that packets should not be discriminated based on their origin, destination or the protocol used. Two of the important issues concerning traffic discrimination are (i) whether an ISP should be allowed to charge CPs in order to reach its end users, and (ii) whether an ISP can have an exclusive agreement with a CP leading to the CP getting preferential services over the ISP???s network. The objective of this special issue is to invite authors to submit original manuscripts that demonstrate and explore current advances in various aspects of net neutrality in communication networks.
