The Dynamic Internet: How Technology, Users, and Businesses are Transforming the Network

The Dynamic Internet: How Technology, Users, and Businesses are Changing the Network offers a comprehensive history of the Internet and efforts to regulate its use. University of Pennsylvania law professor Christopher S. Yoo contends that rather than engaging in prescriptive regulatory oversight, the government should promote competition in other ways, such as reducing costs for consumers, lowering entry barriers for new producers, and increasing transparency. These reforms would benefit consumers while permitting the industry to develop new solutions for emerging problems. It is fruitless for government to attempt to lock the burgeoning online industry into any particular architecture; rather, policymakers should act with the knowledge that no one actor can foresee how the network is likely to evolve in the future.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations Acknowledgments List of Acronyms Introduction Part I: Changes in the Technological and Economic Environment 1. Increases in the Number and Diversity of Internet Users Growth in the Number of Users and Computers Connected to the Internet Changes in the Nature of Users 2. Changes in the Nature of Internet Usage Bandwidth Intensiveness Sensitivity to Jitter, Delay, and Unreliability The Shift from Person-to-Person to Mass Communications The Emergence of Peer-to-Peer Applications Cloud Computing The Emergence of the App Store and the Changing Nature of the Essential Platform 3. The Diversification of Transmission Technologies and End-User Devices The Growing Diversity of Transmission Technologies Broadband Technologies’ Technical Differences The Economics of the Next Generation of Bandwidth Expansion The Growing Diversity of End-User Devices 4. The Upsurge in the Complexity of Business Relationships The Topology of the Early Internet Private Peering Points Multihoming Secondary Peering Content Delivery Networks Server Farms Implications Part II: Policy Implications 5. Changes in the Optimal Level of Standardization The Impact of Increasing Heterogeneity of Consumer Preferences The Impact of Increasing Heterogeneity in Technology 6. The Inevitable Decline of Informal Governance The Importance of Close-Knit Communities Spam Control The Domain Name System Congestion Management 7. The Migration of Functions into the Core of the Network Network Security Congestion Management 8. The Growing Complexity of Internet Pricing Deviations from Flat-Rate Pricing for End Users The Importance of Investment Incentives and the Insights of Ramsey Pricing The Impact of Peer-to-Peer Applications on End-User Pricing Paid Peering and the Economics of Two-Sided Markets The Benefits of Permitting Greater Variety in Pricing Relationships 9. The Inevitability of Intermediation The Benefits of Intermediation The Supreme Court’s Embrace of Intermediation Implications 10. Incomplete Convergence and the Myth of the One Screen Reliability, Network Performance, and Cost Reduction Differences in Technological Capability and Services Implications 11. The Maturation of the Industry Supply-Side Theories Demand-Side Theories Transaction Cost Considerations Implications for Business Strategies and Internet Policy Conclusion References Index About the Author

About the Author :
Christopher Yoo is a professor of law, communication, and computer and information science and director of the Center for Technology, Innovation, and Competition at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law.

Review :
This provocative monograph begins by summarizing the evolving Internet from the mid-1990s when it transitioned from an academic and research network to its modern mass-market form. Yoo (Univ. of Pennsylvania School of Law) cites the four key changes that occurred during this period as the diversity of users, applications, technologies, and business relationships. Next, he suggests that these usage changes may require architectural restructuring and lists seven policy elements for possible adoption. Two parts follow an introductory chapter. The first part contains four chapters elaborating on the key user, usage, technological, and economic and business changes. The second is divided into seven chapters, each respectively expanding on one of the policy element implications. Among these are the level of standardization, governance, an increase in network core functionality, and pricing issues. In the book's final chapter, Yoo stresses the importance of basing policy on the future rather than the past, and recommends how best to proceed with the Internet's ever-evolving future. He uses frequent citations to support his analysis and includes an extensive reference list. The work is clearly written and easily understandable to general readers, offering a very thoughtful, well-documented case for the future of this important system. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Academic, general, and professional audiences, all levels.