Login

Username: Password:   Forgot username / password?

* You need to enable cookies to login.

Register Now Once registered, you will be able to access the following publications.

Merkato Demo Download our flash demo of Merkato and see how to buy and sell on a dynamic marketplace. Technical Papers In-Depth Look at StreamingHand This paper examines StreamingHand, a provider of hosting services and bandwidth on demand, which offers a unique way of selling bandwidth that saves buyers 29% on the cost of bandwidth, while at the same time provides a gross profit margin which is double the industry average for similar. - (Jun 17, 2002) Inter-ISP Peering and Transit The economic structure of Internet Service Provider inter-connections, a dichotomy between free peering and transit service models, is currently an inefficient bandwidth market. This inefficiency has a profound impact across the whole spectrum of the industry, from the profitability of service providers, to the evolution of new services and continued growth of the Internet as the network of networks. This paper synthesizes the key forces driving the wholesale (inter-ISP) market, the consequences of the inefficiencies, and how these forces can be practically harnessed to improve the economics of the industry for both suppliers and users of bandwidth. - (Jun 17, 2002) Merkato Overview This document presents a high-level overview of the Merkato platform for real-time market-based network resource allocation. Its highly scaleable nature allows Merkato to enable Internet bandwidth markets, in a variety of scenarios. Flexibility is a guiding principle, resulting in a system that meshes with the reality of heterogeneous service provider environments. - (Apr 24, 2002) Efficiency of Dynamic Bandwidth Markets This paper demonstrates and quantifies the efficiency of dynamic market-based pricing of IP bandwidth relative to the 90th percentile usage-based pricing model common in the ISP industry today. Based on a simple model of dynamic pricing, and using real-world traffic and price data, we illustrate how dynamic market-pricing can yield 25%-65% increases in revenue, and 2 to 7-fold increases in gross margins for sellers of IP bandwidth, compared to existing usage-pricing models. - (Apr 24, 2002) Internet Server Farms As Bandwidth Markets Internet Server Farms As Bandwidth Markets - (Apr 24, 2002) White Papers / Case Studies Case Study: StreamingHand Service This case study profiles StreamingHand, a provider of hosting services and bandwidth on demand. StreamingHand utilizes InvisibleHand’s Merkato technology, a unique software platform that offers a new way of selling bandwidth that saves buyers 29% on the cost of bandwidth, while at the same time provides sellers with a substantial gross profit margin (39% on average). - (Jul 2, 2002) White Paper: A Deeper Look at Our Solution for Neutral Co-location and Exchange Providers InvisibleHand Networks provides a solution that can enable a highly liquid and flexible IP capacity exchange. Merkato™ is a software platform from InvisibleHand Networks that dynamically prices, sells and allocates IP capacity in real-time. InvisibleHand enables an exchange to create a dynamic marketplace that allows IP capacity sellers to price bandwidth based on market demand, and enables capacity buyers to purchase bandwidth on demand, with high granularity and guaranteed allocation. - (Jun 1, 2002) White Paper: The Service Provider's 3 R's An Educated Approach to Service Transactions: Real-time, Rapid, Revenue Deb Mielke, Trelliage Network Services, October 2001 - (Apr 24, 2002) Case Study: Williamsburg Project: Multi-Tenant Building Flexible T1 Service A look at InvisibleHand’s first commercial deployment of Merkato. Business and residential occupants in a multi-tenant building called Williamsburg in Brooklyn, NY, share a T1 line (1.5 Mbps) for their Internet access. The Internet users buy bandwidth by participating in an automated auction enabled by Merkato. The results are compelling: Higher quality and guaranteed bandwidth for users, while keeping monthly costs lower; higher incremental revenue for the service provider --- 2.3 times the cost of the T1. - (Apr 24, 2002) Research Papers Design and Analysis of the Progressive Second Price Auction for Network Bandwidth Sharing Lazar, Semret, Telecommunications Systems, Special Issue on Network Economics. - (Apr 24, 2003) Pricing, Provisioning and Peering: Dynamic Markets for Differentiated Internet Services and Implication for Network Interconnections. Semret, Liao, Campbell, Lazar, IEEE Journal Selected Areas in Communications, Special Issue on Quality of Service on the Internet, December 2000. - (Apr 24, 2002) Merkato: A Platform for Market-Based Resource Allocation Networking 2000, Intelligent Agents for Telecommunications Environments Paris, May 14-17, 2000. Giammarino, Huard, Semret - (Apr 24, 2002) Peering and Provisioning of Differentiated Internet Services IEEE Infocom 2000 Tel Aviv, March 26-30, 2000. (Presentation Slides) Semret, Liao, Campbell, Lazar - (Apr 24, 2002) Spot and Derivative Markets in Admission Control Semret, Lazar, 16th International Teletraffic Congress, Edinburgh, June 1999 - (Apr 24, 2002) Market Pricing of Differentiated Internet Services Semret, Liao, Campbell, Lazar, 7th IWQoS, London, May 31 - June 4, 1999. - (Apr 24, 2002) Market Mechanisms For Network Resource Sharing Semret, PhD. thesis, Columbia University, 1999 - (Mar 1, 2002)