Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/103084 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 4974
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
We study how net neutrality regulations affect a high-bandwidth content provider's (CP) investment incentives in quality of services (QoS). We find that the effects crucially depend on network capacity levels. With limited capacity, as in mobile networks, prioritized delivery services are complementary to the CP's investments and can facilitate entry of congestion-sensitive content; however, this creates more congestion for other existing content. By contrast, if capacity is relatively large, as in fixed-line networks, prioritized services reduce QoS investment as they become substitutes, but improves traffic management. These results are qualitatively robust to the extension of the ISP's endogenous choice of network capacity.
Subjects: 
net neutrality
asymmetric regulation
quality of service
investment incentives
queuing
congestion
mobile/fixed networks
JEL: 
D40
K20
L10
L50
O30
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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