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1. Characterizing Service Provider Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States

   https://doi.org/10.1007/978303072582-2  

   Shinan Liu, Paul Schmitt (January 2021, Passive and Active Measurement Conference)

   null (Ed.)

   Abstract. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in dramatic changes to the daily habits of billions of people. Users increasingly have to rely on home broadband Internet access for work, education, and other activities. These changes have resulted in corresponding changes to Internet traffic patterns. This paper aims to characterize the effects of these changes with respect to Internet service providers in the United States. We study three questions: (1) How did traffic demands change in the United States as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic?; (2) What effects have these changes had on Internet performance?; (3) How did service providers respond to these changes? We study these questions using data from a diverse collection of sources. Our analysis of interconnection data for two large ISPs in the United States shows a 30–60% increase in peak traffic rates in the first quarter of 2020. In particular, we observe traffic downstream peak volumes for a major ISP increase of 13–20% while upstream peaks increased by more than 30%. Further, we observe significant variation in performance across ISPs in conjunction with the traffic volume shifts, with evident latency increases after stay-at-home orders were issued, followed by a stabilization of traffic after April. Finally, we observe that in response to changes in usage, ISPs have aggressively augmented capacity at interconnects, at more than twice the rate of normal capacity augmentation. Similarly, video conferencing applications have increased their network footprint, more than doubling their advertised IP address space 

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2. Should Large ISPs Apply the Same Settlement-Free Peering Policies To Both ISPs and CDNs?

   https://doi.org/10.1109/CCNC51644.2023.10060728  

   Nikkhah, Ali; Jordan, Scott (January 2023, IEEE)

   Large Internet Service Providers (ISPs) often require that peers meet certain requirements to be eligible for free-settlement peering. The conventional wisdom is that these requirements are related to the perception of roughly equal value from the peering arrangement, but the academic literature has not yet established such a relationship. The focus of this paper is to relate the settlement-free peering requirements between two large ISPs and understand the degree to which the settlement-free peering requirements between them should apply to the peering between large ISPs and content providers. We analyze settlement-free peering requirements about the number and location of interconnection points (IXPs). Large ISPs often require interconnection at a minimum of 6 to 8 interconnection points. We find that the ISP’s traffic-sensitive cost is decreasing and convex with the number of interconnection points. We also observe that there may be little value in requiring interconnection at more than 8 IXPs. We then analyze the interconnection between a large content provider and an ISP. We show that it is rational for an ISP to agree to settlement-free peering if the content provider agrees to interconnect at a specified minimum number of interconnection points and to deliver a specified minimum proportion of traffic locally. 

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3. A system for profiling the IXPs in a region and monitoring their growth: Spotlight at the internet frontier

   https://doi.org/10.1002/nem.2056  

   Fanou, Rodérick; Sanchez‐Agüero, Victor; Valera, Francisco; Mwangi, Michuki; Coffin, Jane (December 2018, International Journal of Network Management)

   Summary This work aims at designing and implementing a system able to profile and help manage the set of Internet eXchange Points (IXPs) in an Internet region. As part of the Internet Society's strategy to help monitor and understand the evolution of IXPs in a particular region, a route‐collector data analyzer tool was developed before being deployed and tested in AfriNIC. In fact, traffic localization efforts in the African peering ecosystem would be more sustained, and their efficacy assessed if they were supported by a platform, which evaluates and reports in real time about their impact on the Internet. We, thus, built the “African” Route‐collectors Data Analyzer (ARDA), an open source web platform for analyzing publicly available routing information collected since 2005, by local route‐collectors. ARDA evaluates predefined metrics that picture the status of the interconnection at local, national, and regional levels. It shows that a small proportion of AfriNIC ASes (roughly 17%) are peering in the region. Through them, 58% of all African networks are visible at one IXP or more. These have been static from April to September 2017, and even February 2018, underlining the need for increased efforts to improve local interconnectivity. We show how ARDA can help detect the impact of policies on the growth of local IXPs or continually provide the community with up‐to‐date empirical data on the evolution of the IXP substrate. Given its features, this tool will be a helpful compass for stakeholders in the quest for better traffic localization and new interconnection opportunities in the targeted region. 

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4. Workshop on Internet Economics (WIE 2020) final report

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3464994.3464999  

   claffy, kc; Clark, David (April 2021, ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review)

   On 16-17 December 2020, CAIDA hosted the 11th interdisciplinary Workshop on Internet Economics (WIE) in a virtual Zoom conference. This year our goal was to gather feedback from researchers on their experiences using CAIDA’s data for economics or policy research. We invited all researchers who reported use of CAIDA data in these disciplines. We discussed their successes and challenges of using the data, and how CAIDA could help these fields via Internet measurement and data curation. To avoid Zoom fatigue, we had a conversation-focused rather than presentation-focused workshop. Research topics we discussed included: Internet data for macroeconomics; connectivity and its effect on economic interdependence; effects of the EU’s new GDPR on internet interconnection; measuring corporate cyber risk; measuring work-from-home trends; measuring the economic value of open source software; and more generally how to best support evidence-based policymaking. 

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5. Impact of simultaneous activities on frequency fluctuations — comprehensive analyses based on the real measurement data from FNET/GridEye

   https://doi.org/10.17775/CSEEJPES.2020.03150  

   Liu, S.; You, S.; Zeng, C.; Zhao, Y.; Yao, W.; Liu, Y.; Lin, Z. (November 2020, CSEE journal of power and energy systems)

   null (Ed.)

   Simultaneous human activities, such as the Super Bowl game, would cause certain impacts on frequency fluctuations in power systems. With the help of FNET/GridEye measurements, this paper aims to give comprehensive analyses on the frequency fluctuations during Super Bowl LIV held on Feb. 2, 2020, so as to better understand several phenomena caused by simultaneous activities which will help system operations and controls. First, recent developments of the FNET/GridEye are briefly introduced. Second, the frequency fluctuations of the Eastern Interconnection (EI), western electricity coordinating council (WECC), and electric reliability council of Texas (ERCOT) power systems during Super Bowl LIV are analyzed. Third, frequency fluctuations of Super Bowl Sunday and ordinary Sundays in 2020 are compared. Finally, the differences of frequency fluctuations among different years during the Super Bowl and their change trends are also given. Furthermore, several possible explanations, including the simultaneity of electricity consumption at the beginning of commercial breaks and the halftime show, the increasing usage of the Internet, and the increasing size of TV screens, are illustrated in detail in this paper. 

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