The Economics of the Internet Backbone

Nicholas Economides ()

No 04-23, Working Papers from NET Institute

Abstract: This paper discusses the economics of the Internet backbone. I discuss competition on the Internet backbone as well as relevant competition policy issues. In particular, I show how public protocols, ease of entry, very fast network expansion, connections by the same Internet Service Provider (“ISP”) to multiple backbones (ISP multi-homing), and connections by the same large web site to multiple ISPs (customer multi-homing) enhance price competition and make it very unlikely that any firm providing Internet backbone connectivity would find it profitable to degrade or sever interconnection with other backbones in an attempt to monopolize the Internet backbone.

Keywords: Internet; network effects; Internet backbone; competition; monopoly; MCI; WorldCom (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C63 D42 D43 L12 L13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 57 pages
Date: 2004-10, Revised 2004-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ict, nep-mic and nep-net
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Working Paper: The Economics of the Internet Backbone (2004)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:net:wpaper:0423

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