Following the release of the Global Internet Report 2019 Consolidation in the Internet Economy (GIR 2019), the Internet Society is conducting further research on the topic of consolidation. To this end, the project team is inviting interested OMAC members to join a focus group discussion to exchange views and help guide the ongoing research.
The term Internet consolidation can broadly be described as “the process of the increasing control over Internet infrastructure and services by a small set of organizations” (Arkko et al, 2019). In this light, Internet consolidation can be viewed as a phenomenon, which can be approached from multiple perspectives and considerations. The ambition of these focus group discussions is to gain insights from OMAC members around some of these considerations – guided by the outcome questions of the GIR 2019.
The first focus group will specifically address the following questions:
- Trends of new traffic patterns, whereby access networks are more densely interconnected through IXPs and increasingly peer directly with content providers, is often referred to as a “flattening Internet topology”. What do you see as the concerns and opportunities from these trends for the long-term viability of the open Internet?
- If users are facing an access environment that is increasingly optimized for the delivery of services owned by a few, how can we promote access to an open and globally-connected Internet?
The suggested background reading for these questions can be found in the GIR 2019, and specifically the section “A Changing Internet Topology”. Participants are also encouraged to share other relevant readings with the project team, which can be circulated with the focus group in advance. The discussion will be led by Carl Gahnberg and Christian O’Flaherty.