Pricing the Internet for Congestion Control and Social Welfare

Over the course of the past two decades, network use has continued to outpace network capacity growth. This has lead to increasing network congestion, which hinders day to day use as well as Internet content innovation. Modifying how Internet Service Providers (ISPs) charge the user is one way to control congestion and improve collective social welfare. In this paper, we discuss several Internet pricing models proposed and compare them on issues such as economic viability, fairness between user groups, ability to control congestion, and overall societal welfare.