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The 6th Workshop on Internet Economics (WIE 2015)

The 6th Workshop on Internet Economics (WIE 2015)

On December 16-17, 2015, CAIDA and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will host the (invitation-only) 6th interdisciplinary Workshop on Internet Economics (WIE) at the University of California San Diego in La Jolla, CA.

The goal of this workshop series is to provide a forum for researchers, commercial Internet facilities and service providers, technologists, economists, theorists, policy makers, and other stakeholders to empirically inform emerging Internet regulatory and policy debates.

Date: Dec 16 (Wed) - 17 (Thu), 2015
Place: Weaver Conference Center, Malamud Room, Institute of the Americas
UC San Diego Campus, La Jolla, CA

Topics of Interest

Both current events and trends, as well as our past discussions, shape the themes for this year's WIE. The FCC's latest open Internet order changes the landscape of regulation by using Title II as a basis for Internet regulation. We prefer not to use this workshop to debate what the court will do. Instead, we hope to discuss issues that will arise if the courts uphold the law. What are the implications of Title II regulation for some of the issues we have looked at in the past, or which are now emerging as important factors in shaping the future of the Internet?

  • Quality of Experience:
    • There is increasing recognition that what matters to users is whether their experience in using the Internet is impaired. They are less concerned with technical measures such as packet loss rates or jitter, and more concerned with what these indicators imply for how they experience the apps they use.
    • What measurements and infrastructure would support increased understanding of QoE and its impairments? For example, does deployment of CGN vs. IPv6 have observable implications for QoE?
    • How does a focus on QoE affect concepts of regulation?
    • Does a shift in focus from QoS to QoE raise new questions about economics?
    • Does a focus on QoE lend support for the use of explicit mechanisms for differentiated services anywhere within the Internet?
  • Differentiated services on the public Internet:
    • Given the current character of the Internet and its popular applications, is there a compelling technical need for differentiated services anywhere within the system?
    • Is there a future in which bandwidth is everywhere abundant?
    • If not, what are the barriers to the offering of differentiated service? Does IPv6 offer or require any different approach to differentiated services?
    • How would such a service be defined?
    • What forms of differentiated services would be permissible under the terms of Title II?
  • Consumer expectations about broadband Internet access:
    • Today, the FCC measures the achieved speed of Internet access services as a signal of whether the service is delivered as advertised.
    • How far beyond the access link can one expect contracted access link bandwidth?
    • What are the obligations on different actors in meeting these expectations?
    • How does this expectation change as providers offer very high speed access (e.g., GB/s to the home)? Will such high-speed access lead to an Internet of abundant bandwidth?
  • Implications of direct interconnection:
    • While direct interconnections between CDNs and access networks were originally positioned as just another form of peering, we consider it a new topological pattern.
    • What are the implications of the emergence of direct interconnection for QoE, and for the offering of differentiated services?
    • Does the emergence of direct interconnection disrupt other parts of the Internet ecosystem?
    • What are the options for regulation of direct interconnection, should there be such a need? What sort of failure might trigger such a need?
  • The implications of specialized services:
    • IP can be used to deliver more than Internet access to the consumer. The infrastructure of modern ISPs is being used to carry many sorts of data and deliver many sorts of service. Specialized services carry both a benefit and a risk: they increase the overall incentive of an ISP to upgrade facilities, but they might lead to a investment preference for those specialized servies, at the cost of the open Internet.
    • Does the use of Title II as a regulatory approach change the landscape of specialized services?
    • Are there new considerations with respect to these "non-Internet" services that warrant a fresh look at the issues?
  • Measurement issues in February 2015 Open Internet Report and Order:
    • When the FCC talks about measurements that ISPs have to report, how should these measurements occur?
    • What new measurements tests should be integrated into the FCC's Measure Broadband America program?
    • Variations on existing measurements are being proposed for the MBA program (e.g., measurement of streaming video, web downloads, packet loss). Do these enhanced measurement techniques raise any issues or concerns?
  • Implications of new technology:
    • Nominate your favorite emerging technology (or class of application or service) and identify issues of relevance to this workshop. New technology may influence high-speed consumer access and new applications, while other sorts of new technology may shift the landscape in ways we should discuss in the future. For example:
      • DOCSIS 3.1 and G.fast
      • Information-Centric Networking
      • Universal encryption and network management

Format

As in previous years, the format of this meeting is a series of focused sessions around specific, pre-selected topics. Presenters will prepare short talks (10 minutes) on issues related to the topics.

Not everyone will give a prepared talk, but we expect everyone to participate in the discussions, as well as provide input, writing, and/or feedback on the report we'll publish within shortly after the workshop. Our goal is to produce a public workshop report, but the discussions themselves (and the identity of specific speakers) will be specifically off the record.

Organizing committee

  • kc claffy (CAIDA/UC San Diego)
  • David Clark (MIT)

Registration closed

Registration for WIE 2015 is closed, and we cannot accept any more registrants.

Workshop Agenda

December 16 (Wednesday)

December 17 (Thursday)

Local Arrangements / Getting to UC San Diego

For this workshop, attendees are expected to make their own hotel reservations and transportation arrangements from their hotels to the workshop. For CAIDA's list of recommended local hotels including shuttle availability, see the Recommended Hotels list (PDF).

The 6th WIE workshop will be held in the Weaver Center at the Institute of the Americas on the University of California San Diego (UC San Diego) campus.

  • Transportation options
    Campus map for WIE workshop
    • Shuttle to Hotels: SuperShuttle can be arranged to shuttle to UC San Diego campus or your hotel.
    • Taxis: Yellow Cab of San Diego. A GPS pointed at "9855 International Ln, La Jolla, CA" should take you close enough to see the signs the Institute of Americas and the Weaver Center.
    • Car rental: Available at the airport
  • Meeting Room: The workshop will be held in the Weaver Center, Malamud Room at the Institute of the Americas on the University of California San Diego campus.
    • For directions to the Institute of the Americas, visit their website at http://www.iamericas.org/en/ under "About IOA - Location and Map".
  • Driving onto campus

    Parking Permits: Parking permits are required to park on UC San Diego Campus. On arrival to campus on the morning of Day 1, check in with a CAIDA staff member waiting in front of the handicap spots on International Lane near the Institute of the Americas plaza. We will give you a parking permit for the day, and then point you to the Pangea Parking Structure for parking.

    A campus map for the WIE workshop shows where the permits will be distributed, the parking structure, and the Weaver Center where the meeting will be held.

    Parking permits for Day 2 will be distributed at the end of Day 1, just prior to the reception.

For transportation concerns, general questions and help, contact CAIDA at <admin-staff at caida.org> or (858) 534-5109.

General UC San Diego Maps and general UC San Diego Visitor Parking information are useful resources for navigating on campus. (For GPS-enabled attendees, the GPS coordinates of the Weaver Center is WGS84: 32°53'6.30'N, 117°14'28.02'W)

Additional Content

The 6th Workshop on Internet Economics (WIE 2015): Participants

This page contains the list of participants of WIE 2015 on December 16-17, 2015.

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