Regulating wireless access costs for not vertically integrated content providers

Abstract

We consider a single, unaffiliated streaming content provider (CP) and another that is vertically integrated (affiliated) with a cellular wireless ISP. We formulate a non-cooperative game between these two CPs involving, e.g., linear demand-response to price by the end-users with long-duration sessions (e.g., streaming video), and a model as amplified noise of additional network delay jitter and reduced responsiveness to changing channel conditions by the unaffiliated CP. The effect of effective additional side-payments from the unaffiliated CP to the ISP, as may be set by a government regulator, is studied at Stackelberg equilibrium both analytically and numerically.