Bøger af Patrick Maille

This book discusses the pros and cons of information and communication (ICT) neutrality. It tries to be as objective as possible from arguments of proponents and opponents, this way enabling readers to build their own opinion. It presents the history of the ongoing network neutrality debate, the various concepts it encompasses, and also some mathematical developments illustrating optimal strategies and potential counter-intuitive results, then extends the discussion to connected ICT domains. The book thus touches issues related to history, economics, law, networking, and mathematics.After an introductory chapter on the history of the topic, chapter 2 surveys and compares the various laws in place worldwide and discusses some implications of heterogeneous rules in several regions. Next, chapter 3 details the arguments put forward by the participants of the net neutrality debate. Chapter 4 then presents how the impact of neutral or non-neutral behaviors can be analyzed mathematically, with sometimes counter-intuitive results, and emphasizes the interest of modeling to avoid bad decisions. Chapter 5 illustrates that content providers may not always be on the pro-neutrality side, as there are situations where they may have an economic advantage with a non-neutral situation, e.g. when they are leaders on a market and create barriers to entry for competitors. Another related issue is covered in chapter 6, which discusses existing ways for ISPs to circumvent the packet-based rules and behave non-neutral without breaking the written law. Chapter 7 gives more insight on the role and possible non-neutral behavior of search engines, leading to another debate called the search neutrality debate. Chapter 8 focuses on e-commerce platforms and social networks, and investigates how they can influence users' actions and opinions. The issue is linked to the debate on the transparency of algorithms which is active in Europe especially. Chapter 9 focuses on enforcing neutrality in practice through measurements: indeed, setting rules requires monitoring the activity of ICT actors in order to sanction non-appropriate behaviors and be proactive against new conducts. The chapter explains why this is challenging and what tools are currently available. Eventually, Chapter 10 briefly concludes the presentation and opens the debate.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th International Workshop on Internet Charging and QoS Technologies, ICQT 2011, held in Paris, France, in October 2011 collocated with the 7th International Conference on Network and Service Management. The 6 revised full papers presented together with an abstract of a keynote paper were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on service guarantees, evaluation of pricing schemes, and inter-domain services.

Presenting a balance of theory and practice, this up-to-date guide provides a comprehensive overview of the key issues in telecommunication network economics, as well as the mathematical models behind the solutions. These mathematical foundations enable the reader to understand the economic issues arising at this pivotal time in network economics, from business, research and political perspectives. This is followed by a unique practical guide to current topics, including app stores, volume-based pricing, auctions for advertisements, search engine business models, the network neutrality debate, the relationship between mobile operators and mobile virtual network operators, and the economics of security. The guide discusses all types of players in telecommunications, from users, to access and transit network providers, to service providers (including search engines, cloud providers or content delivery networks), to content providers and regulatory bodies. Ideal for graduate students, researchers and industry practitioners working in telecommunications.