IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/107008.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Pricing, competition and content for internet service providers

Author

Listed:
  • Key, Peter
  • Steinberg, Richard

Abstract

We examine competition between two Internet Service Providers (ISPs), where the first ISP provides basic Internet service, while the second ISP provides Internet service plus content, i.e., enhanced service , where the first ISP can partner with a Content Provider to provide the same content as the second ISP. When such a partnering arrangement occurs, the Content Provider pays the first ISP a transfer price for delivering the content. Users have heterogeneous preferences, and each in general faces three options: (1) buy basic Internet service from the first ISP; (2) buy enhanced service from the second ISP; or (3) buy enhanced service jointly from the first ISP and the Content Provider. We derive results on the existence and uniqueness of a Nash equilibrium, and provide closed-form expressions for the prices, user masses, and profits of the two ISPs and the Content Provider. When the first ISP has the ability to choose the transfer price, then when congestion is linear in the load, it is never optimal for the first ISP to set a negative transfer price in the hope of attracting more revenue from additional customers desiring enhanced service. Conversely, when congestion is sufficiently super-linear, the optimal strategy for the first ISP is either to set a negative transfer price (subsidizing the Content Provider) or to set a high transfer price that shuts the Content Provider out of the market.

Suggested Citation

  • Key, Peter & Steinberg, Richard, 2020. "Pricing, competition and content for internet service providers," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 107008, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:107008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/107008/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Avner Shaked & John Sutton, 1982. "Relaxing Price Competition Through Product Differentiation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 49(1), pages 3-13.
    2. Nicholas Economides & Benjamin E. Hermalin, 2012. "The economics of network neutrality," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 43(4), pages 602-629, December.
    3. Ramesh Johari & Gabriel Y. Weintraub & Benjamin Van Roy, 2010. "Investment and Market Structure in Industries with Congestion," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 58(5), pages 1303-1317, October.
    4. Gibbens, R. & Mason, R. & Steinberg, Richard, 2000. "Internet service classes under competition," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 23577, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Gérard P. Cachon & Pnina Feldman, 2011. "Pricing Services Subject to Congestion: Charge Per-Use Fees or Sell Subscriptions?," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 13(2), pages 244-260, June.
    6. Jason R. Marden & Adam Wierman, 2013. "Distributed Welfare Games," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 61(1), pages 155-168, February.
    7. Victor Martínez-de-Albéniz & David Simchi-Levi, 2009. "Competition in the Supply Option Market," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 57(5), pages 1082-1097, October.
    8. repec:adr:anecst:y:1989:i:15-16:p:17 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Radner, Roy, 1980. "Collusive behavior in noncooperative epsilon-equilibria of oligopolies with long but finite lives," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 136-154, April.
    10. André De Palma & Luc Leruth, 1989. "Congestion and Game in Capacity: a Duopoly Analysis in the Presence of Network Externalities," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 15-16, pages 389-407.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Narine Badasyan & Subhadip Chakrabarti, 2004. "Intra-backbone and Inter-backbone Peering Among Internet Service Providers," Microeconomics 0407006, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Narine Badasyan & Subhadip Chakrabarti, 2003. "Private Peering Among Internet Backbone Providers," Microeconomics 0301003, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. De Borger, Bruno & Van Dender, Kurt, 2006. "Prices, capacities and service levels in a congestible Bertrand duopoly," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 264-283, September.
    4. Georgia Perakis & Wei Sun, 2014. "Efficiency Analysis of Cournot Competition in Service Industries with Congestion," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(11), pages 2684-2700, November.
    5. Njoroge Paul & Ozdaglar Asuman & Stier-Moses Nicolás E. & Weintraub Gabriel Y., 2014. "Investment in Two-Sided Markets and the Net Neutrality Debate," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(4), pages 355-402, February.
    6. Gibbens, R. & Mason, R. & Steinberg, Richard, 2000. "Internet service classes under competition," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 23577, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. L. Colombo, 2003. "Quality of service in the Congestible Internet: a Differential Game with Capacity Investments," Working Papers 485, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    8. Zhang, Zhongju & Dey, Debabrata & Tan, Yong, 2008. "Price and QoS competition in data communication services," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 187(3), pages 871-886, June.
    9. HAIMANKO, Ori & STEINBERG, Richard, 2000. "Price symmetry in a duopoly with congestion," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2000056, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    10. Tarun Jain & Jishnu Hazra, 2019. "“On-demand” pricing and capacity management in cloud computing," Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 18(3), pages 228-246, June.
    11. Ashantha Ranasinghe & Xuejuan Su, 2023. "When social assistance meets market power: A mixed duopoly view of health insurance in the United States," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 61(4), pages 851-869, October.
    12. Baglioni, Laura & Calabrese, Armando & Ghiron, Nathan Levialdi, 2013. "Net neutrality at internet backbone provider level," 24th European Regional ITS Conference, Florence 2013 88506, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
    13. Zemsky, Peter & Adner, Ron, 2003. "Disruptive Technologies and the Emergence of Competition," CEPR Discussion Papers 3994, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. D'Annunzio, Anna & Russo, Antonio, 2015. "Net Neutrality and internet fragmentation: The role of online advertising," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 30-47.
    15. Andr, Francisco J. & Gonzlez, Paula & Porteiro, Nicols, 2009. "Strategic quality competition and the Porter Hypothesis," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 182-194, March.
    16. Saruta, Fuyuki, 2021. "Effects of Vertical Integration on Internet Service Providers' Zero-rating Choice," MPRA Paper 110288, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Yong-Jae Choi, 2014. "Regulation of Program Licensing Fee in Korean CATV Industry: Is it Welfare-Improving?," Korean Economic Review, Korean Economic Association, vol. 30, pages 369-384.
    18. Randall Berry & Michael Honig & Thành Nguyen & Vijay Subramanian & Rakesh Vohra, 2020. "The Value of Sharing Intermittent Spectrum," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(11), pages 5242-5264, November.
    19. Miljkovic, Dragan & Jin, Hyun, 2006. "Import Demand for Quality in the Japanese Beef Market," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 35(2), pages 276-284, October.
    20. Bos, Iwan & Marini, Marco A., 2019. "Cartel stability under quality differentiation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 70-73.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    communication networks; competition; content provider; optimal pricing; Nash equilibrium; profit;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R14 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Land Use Patterns
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:107008. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.