Value networks and two-sided markets of Internet content delivery

The volume and importance of content is increasing in the Internet, whereas the ability of the Internet architecture to scale to the growing demand for transport capacity is uncertain. Even though the natural growth in the demand continues, the growth in traffic volumes can be limited by reducing unnecessary content copying and redundant transportation of the same content. Information-centric networking (ICN), featuring globally unique naming of content and optimized in-network caching, has been suggested as a potential future solution to significantly reduce unnecessary traffic, but its economic feasibility has not been widely studied. This paper evaluates the economic feasibility of ICN by using the two-sided markets theory to analyze four Internet content delivery models: the client-server model, content delivery network (CDN) model, peer-to-peer model and ICN model. Value networks and two-sided markets of these content delivery models are identified in the process. The results suggest that content providers can be willing to pay for the lower delay of content delivery in ICN, if ICN can solve its coordination problems related to cost-allocation, contracting, quality of service guarantees, and content usage statistics. These incentive challenges are essentially the same as in-network web caching originally faced and could not overcome. Internet access providers may also consider investing in the deployment of ICN due to reduced interconnection costs. However, the ICN model may require a revenue-creating business model to make it more attractive to Internet access providers than the CDN model that provides similar cost savings.