Current Internet business models have network operators and service providers living in symbiosis. While the service providers need the network operators’ infrastructure as the basis for their services, the network operators can only successfully market their Internet access offers when attractive Internet services are available. However, this previously functional Internet model is shifting out of keel for all those involved. This article will illustrate how the balance in Internet can be restored.

The continuously increasing commercialization of the Internet along with rapid technological developments has led to a paradigm shift in the entire telecommunications industry over the last decade. Previously network-centric services are increasingly being replaced by IP-based services which can be accessed by all.


Whereas it used to be mainly the large carriers who were in the position to develop and market mass services involving immense investment sums, smaller companies are now achieving the same for a fraction of the cost. These no longer have to set up and operate their own cost-intensive network infrastructure as they can use the public Internet and the increasingly ubiquitous broadband user connections as the basis for their services. In this way they can externalize the costs of data transport and accordingly produce and provide their services more cheaply.


These capabilities have led to numerous companies now offering professional services in Internet which were previously the sole domain of large carriers. In recent years the success stories of these so-called ‚over-to-top providers’, led by Google, Skype, Amazon and eBay, have snowballed. Today the market capitalization of Google alone is more than one third higher than that of major European carriers.


Guaranteeing quality without being able to control it?
The Quality of Service (QoS), i.e. the quality at which the data packages are transported via the Internet, is, at least implicitly, presently in the hands of the carriers or network operators. Over-the-top service providers on the other hand have little leeway for influencing the quality of service, even if they are willing to pay for it. As a consequence they are not themselves in a position to be able to guarantee uninterrupted functionality to their paying customers.


Put bluntly, this means that nearly all services which are presently available in the Internet are supplied on a basis of trust that the service quality will be reasonable. Assurances that a particular quality of service will be provided generally can not be and are not given by the network operators for Internet traffic. This is particularly true of inter-network traffic. While the available quality of service in the Internet is presently sufficient for most services, the question is whether this will still be the case in the future. The following two developments suggest that the opposite is to be expected and make it clear why the existing Internet model, which was originally developed for non-commercial use, cannot be maintained in the long term.
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