Telecommunication Network Economics

Patrick Maillé has been an assistant professor at the Networks, Security and Multimedia Department of Telecom Bretagne since 2002. He has written or co-written more than 60 papers on game theory and economic concepts applied to telecommunication ecosystems. Bruno Tuffin has been with INRIA in Rennes, France, since 1997. He has written or co-written more than one hundred papers and two books on Monte Carlo and quasi-Monte Carlo simulation techniques for the performance evaluation of telecommunication systems, and on developing new Internet-pricing schemes and telecommunication-related economic models.

• 1. Introduction: telecommunications evolution and set of actors: 1.1 The evolution of telecommunications and the associated economic models; 1.2 Need for modeling and analysis; 1.3 Description of actors; 1.4 Goal of the book; 1.5 Outline of the book; 2. Mathematical foundations: optimization, game theory, auctions; 2.1 Basic economic theory; 2.2 Mathematical tools; 2.3 Game theory; 2.4 Mechanism design and auctions; 2.5 Conclusion; 3. Economics of access service providers: 3.1 History and evolution of access pricing models; 3.2 Expectations of users and ISPs, impact on other actors; 3.3 Flat-rate pricing; 3.4 Volume-based pricing; 3.5 Congestion and value-based pricing; 3.6 Economics of bundling; 4. Economics at the content and application level: 4.1 A bit of history; 4.2 Advertising; 4.3 Paid applications versus free applications with advertisement; 4.4 Economics of clouds/grids; 4.5 Economics of peer-to-peer systems; 4.6 Economics of content delivery networks; 5. Interactions among network service providers: 5.1 Introduction; 5.2 Auctions for wireless spectrum; 5.3 Competition between access providers; 5.4 Client but competitor: the (unsustainable?) situation of MVNOs; 5.5 Economics of interconnection; 5.6 Economics of community networks; 6. Interactions among content and application service providers: 6.1 Introduction; 6.2 Competition at the content level; 6.3 A specific case: competition between search engines; 6.4 Economic stakes of network security; 7. Relations between content/application providers and access service providers: 7.1 Evolution of economic relations between content/application and network providers; 7.2 Value chain, vertical integration; 7.3 Network neutrality issue; 7.4 Search neutrality.

'Recently, more and more methods inspired by procedures developed by business departments are being applied in network planning and management. A network engineer or researcher should be acquainted with them, at least at the basic level, and [this] book by Maillé and Tuffin can help in this learning effort. The book is a comprehensive overview of crucial issues in the economics of telecommunication networks and services that are valid today. … [It] maintains a balance between theory and practice, [and] therefore … can be used either as a textbook for academic courses or [as] a handbook for practitioners.' Jan Derkacz, IEEE Communications Magazine