Toward a Profitable ISP Business in a Competitive Environment

Abstract

The market of Internet service providers (ISPs) is highly competitive. Although many different pricing schemes could be deployed in this market, two types are mainly offered: flat rate pricing and per-minute pricing. These pricing schemes are criticised for limiting ISPs’ revenues and for not addressing customer’s requirements on service quality. We focus on the ISPs’ business relationships and on their pricing strategies in order to analyse revenue sharing mechanisms. We argue that the introduction of incentive pricing schemes, such as dynamic pricing, may enable provision of service quality by improving revenue sharing among ISPs.