The Internet Demand Experiment or INDEX is a market and technology trial. Its objective is to determine how much users value different qualities of service for Interent access. Findings from the trial imply that today's system of flat-rate pricing by ISPs is very inefficient. Flat-rate pricing wastes resources, requires light users to subsidize heavy users, and hinders deployment of broadband access. INDEX is a prototype of an alternative ISP model that offers differentiated-quality service on demand, with prices that reflect resource cost. In this alternative ISP consumers pay less, suppliers increase profits, and the deployment of broadband access is facilitated. A major contribution of network engineering is the development of techniques (signalling protocols and associated algorithms) for using the same set of network resources (links and switches or routers) to simultaneously provide different services to end users. This is sometimes called an integrated services model to emphasize network support of different applications such as real-time voice and video and non-real time data transfer. One may also say that these techniques allow provisioning of differentiated quality service. The latter characterization emphasizes the flexible transport capabilities of the network and frees users to select the best way to match service quality to the demands of their application, time, and budget. Although it is possible to provide it, differentiated quality service is not sold in the marketplace. There may be for two reasons for this, one economic, the other technical. To offer differentiated quality requires the design and testing of economically viable alternatives to the flat-rate pricing model adopted by virtually all Internet Service Providers (ISPs). It also requires a technology to package such a service in forms that users can purchase, provide the means for users to express their demand, signal the network to provision the requested quality, and generate accounting and billing records. The INDEX trial tests alternative pricing models and a technology to implement those models.
The Internet Demand Experiment (INDEX REF ) is a prototype alternative ISP model that offers differentiated-quality service on demand, with prices that reflect resource cost.
Providing Internet Access: What We Learn From INDEX
IEEE Network
Computer Science