An economic perspective on traffic attraction by Internet transit providers

This paper presents an economic perspective on traffic attraction and countermeasures. The results demonstrate that tier-1, tier-2, and tier-3 networks have significant financial incentives to attract traffic. In comparison to ASes from the lower tiers, the tier-1 networks are in a stronger position to benefit from traffic attraction with respect to: (a) the degree of the attainable gain, (b) impact on other networks, and (c) preserving their own gain when multiple ASes attract traffic. The traffic attraction remains effective despite countermeasures unless other ASes participate in the countermeasures broadly. The disconnection by losing customers is ineffective unless a large portion of them terminate their business relationships with the attractor.