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Abstract
Today's residential Internet is a bundled best-effort service, and does not distinguish between the different types of applications (video streaming, web-browsing, and large file transfers), nor does it cater to varying needs of household devices (entertainment-tablet, work-laptop, or connected-appliance). This is a problem for users, who want differentiation amongst applications and devices; for content providers (CPs), who want to exercise control over streams of high monetary value; and for Internet service providers (ISPs) who have to carry growing traffic volumes without additional revenues. Solutions for this problem have been elusive to-date due to economic, regulatory, and technical challenges, touching upon aspects such as who pays for the ``fast-lane" service differentiation, how is network neutrality affected, and what mechanisms are used for service differentiation. We believe that the emerging paradigm of software defined networking (SDN) has the potential to address these challenges, since it allows the network to be reconfigured dynamically using open interfaces that can be aligned with business objectives.
In this thesis, we first survey the various perspectives on differentiated service delivery, covering the technical, economic, social and regulatory viewpoints, and how they differ in various parts of the world. We also argue why we believe SDN can inspire new solutions that can address these viewpoints in a way that is acceptable to ISPs, content providers, and users alike. Second, we propose an architecture for fast- and slow-lanes controlled by content providers, and perform evaluations to show that it can yield better control of service quality for video streaming, web-browsing, and bulk transfer flows. Third, we develop an economic model to support our architecture, showing that it can benefit three entities – ISP, content provider, and end-user. Fourth, we extend our system to have two-sided control, wherein flow-level control by content providers is augmented with device-level control by end-users; we develop methods to resolve conflicts based on economic incentives. Finally, we show how user-level control can be extended beyond fast- and slow-lanes to offer value-add services such as quota management and parental controls, that can be executed in today's home networks, with or without ISP support. This thesis paves the way towards dynamic and agile management of the broadband access network in a way that is beneficial for all.