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Comcast Business 2024 Cybersecurity Threat Report: Artificial Intelligence 
Drives New Era of Cyber Threats and Defenses

Comcast Business released its 2024 Cybersecurity Threat Report based on the analysis of 29 billion cybersecurity events detected by Comcast Business across its security customers in 2023.

Comcast Business 2024 Cybersecurity Threat Report: Artificial Intelligence Drives New Era of Cyber Threats and Defenses - Orange County Business Journal

Comcast Business today released its 2024 Cybersecurity Threat Report, a valuable resource for IT and security professionals, based on the analysis of 29 billion cybersecurity events detected by Comcast Business across its security customers in 2023.

Artificial intelligence drives new era of cyber threats and defenses, reports Comcast | Security Info Watch

PHILADELPHIA, October 07, 2024--Comcast Business today released its 2024 Cybersecurity Threat Report, a valuable resource for IT and security professionals, based on the analysis of 29 billion cybersecurity events detected by Comcast Business across its security customers in 2023.

Comcast Business 2024 Cybersecurity Threat Report: Artificial Intelligence Drives New Era of Cyber Threats and Defenses

At Brilliant Detroit’s six technology hubs, the grant will be used to increase the nonprofits ability to provide residents with reliable, high-speed wireless internet

Comcast donates $50k, 60 laptops to Brilliant Detroit to advance digital equity

Comcast today announced the company completed the initial ... and stream leading entertainment, sports, and news through brands including NBC, Telemundo, Universal, Peacock, and Sky; and bring incredible theme parks and attractions to life through ...

Comcast Completes Initial Phase Of Multi-Million-Dollar Broadband Expansion To 700 Homes And Businesses In Mt. Angel, Oregon

Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA) announced that on Thursday, November 16, 2023, Jason Armstrong, Chief Financial Officer of Comcast Corporation, wi

Comcast to Participate in Morgan Stanley Investor Conference

Company will Make Fiber-Rich Xfinity 10G Network Available to More Than 1,000 Homes & BusinessesMt. Angel, OREGON----Comcast today announced the company completed the initial phase of its expansion to

Comcast Completes Initial Phase of Multi-Million-Dollar Broadband Expansion to 700 Homes and Businesses In Mt. Angel, Oregon

Comcast Corporation today published its 2023 Green Bond Report, which outlines the partial allocation of proceeds from its inaugural $1 billion green bond that it issued in February 2023. Comcast allocated $421.8 million of the $995 million net proceeds ...

Comcast Issues 2023 Green Bond Report Highlighting Allocations Made in Green Buildings and Electric Vehicles

Comcast Corporation today published its 2023 Green Bond Report, which outlines the partial allocation of proceeds from its inaugural $1 billion green bond that it issued in February 2023.

Comcast

comcast

Media Conglomerates Are Taking Over The World

This is a post about two things I see in the evolution of companies, and I wish did not exist. The first is popularizing an all encompassing enemy to start a company, and the second is popularizing an all encompassing enemy to scale a company. So basically, everything I write here can be summarized as, ‘ .’ Are people “convoluted” enough to unite for something? BTW, don’t expect all encompassing facts to support my opinion here. I’ll give you a few examples, but this post comes from my gut—great teams are built from a purpose for something, and not a purpose against something. don’t grow a company by popularizing an all encompassing enemy Startup Phase Too often I see startups say, “We exist because X sucks” where X is the incumbent, the government, the higher priced competitors, the lower priced imitators, or an “inability” to go to the pet store to buy dog food. I get it, the lean startup, your boss, and most venture capitalists out there ask, ‘What problem are you solving for?’ And I get why they are asking this question — who wants to go into business with people who aren’t thinking big? But the question is ultimately flawed because the fundamental problems that exist for the first humans also exist for humans today. The rest is just f*cking details. All long-term businesses impact the customer’s , , , , , , , , , and/or . water food shelter sanitation healthcare education family travel entertainment access to information Saying you’re the “uber of dog biscuits” is going to imply that you’re the dog biscuit company that sexually harasses its employees, and is capable of hailing a cab from your smartphone within 5 minutes. Now, 5 months ago it mostly implied the latter… but which one is your company more likely to achieve? The math clearly indicates that a new company is more likely to be charged for sexual harassment than achieve a $50B evaluation by disrupting the long standing social norm of not getting into a stranger’s car. The point is simpler. Who you are is not who you are not. Product-Market Fit Phase Too often I see established companies say, “We’re not like Y” or “We’re like Y, but we do Z.” For established companies this comparison is often done with a change in tone for when the competitor is mentioned. There’s nothing wrong with admitting similarity — if you’re honest about it. Internet accessibility is a great thing to offer. If it’s reliable, it works. Many of the products and services we pay for are like this — binary, meaning the granular improvement is negligible to the customer’s utility. There’s nothing wrong with many companies offering similar services; in fact it should be the staple of capitalism: many companies willing to provide the goods and services that the population demands. Unfortunately, there is only one decent cable provider in my area, and that is the essence of where this headline unfortunately meets reality. In the the quest to achieve product market fit (aka maximum profits extracted from X subset of population), uniting against a common enemy becomes the norm — until there is no more competition. can literally raise my rates to whatever they see fit — because I need internet access and there is no other provider in my area. Luckily for me, they’ll only raise fees 18% or so year over year! What a great deal, they claim! What luck it is that I am 29 years old in 2017 America! Comcast In reality, this is where the common enemy of the company becomes the customer. True product-market fit is more accurately described as “monopoly.” You may have played this game before. To put it more accurately, you are probably playing this game right now with some/many of your existing bills. Ultimately, if you go down the all encompassing enemy route, your goal is a monopoly, and the reality is, it might work… as in, the tech conglomerate is less companies with more market share but you just may be the next Zuck. Ultimately, I Get It I get why many CEOs do it… if you are united against a common goal, you are — in a convoluted way — united. It’s how many revolutions and countries have been started. Many citizens won’t migrate for universal healthcare but many citizens will migrate when brothers and sisters have been mistreated. But in today’s world, is that the business you want to create? A business that is united against , , , or whatever the next investor deems worth fighting for? Whenever your business lacks a common purpose, it’s easy to go into the well and find a common problem. I I get why many CEOs choose to — figuratively — be the predatory douche at the bar, but I hope to never choose that road for my people. newsfeeds parking garages advertisements Be For Something I’d like to tell you, what I’m for: . I’m for helping the person who is alone with the internet and wants a story about thinking bigger, thinking different, or just, thinking like another interesting person. I work to surface the next great story. With hard work and attention to detail, anyone should be able to tell a story that reaches the people they want to reach. It may happen on the first post or it may happen on the eighth post, but the opportunity to deliver your story is there like it’s never been before. Be a storyteller, and doors will open for your business. digital storytelling

Uniting the Team Against a Common Enemy Is Not Team Building

A shortened and slightly different version of this article originally appeared as a guest post on Venture Beat The popular song “Video Killed the Radio Star”, released by the Buggles in 1979, was an ode to how changes in technology lead directly to changes in fortunes in the entertainment industry. This is a cycle that has played out multiple times, starting with radio to television in the 1950s. In the 1980s, the rise of cable television shook the entertainment industry. These changes are still happening today, as the rise of the Internet gave opportunity for on-demand video and new aggregation and streaming sites like Netflix and Hulu, or Amazon. Today, with the rise of a new type of technology, blockchain, powered by nodes of peer to peer computers around the world and funded by new tokens, will this trend continue? Could decentralized entertainment applications built on blockchain actually replace centralized streaming services like Netflix or Amazon and be the final death knell for Cable? With blockchain-based entertainment on the way, are existing entertainment structures (broadcast, cable, websites) even needed? The answer is not just technical; it also requires understanding how blockchain powered, token-based systems can provide economic incentives to different parts of the entertainment ecosystem. The Evolution of Entertainment Networks Let’s take a look at the history of television and video technology. In the late 1940s/early 1950s broadcast television networks came about. In the early days, these companies (NBC, CBS, etc.) were called “chain networks” because a central signal was sent from New York to nearby cities like Philadelphia, and then were sent onwards to further locations like Detroit, Chicago, etc. (first using a chained physical coaxial cable and then later dedicated microwave links). The local stations were the only ones broadcasting “over the air” to television sets with antennae. Today we would call this the “last mile problem”. Those of us old enough will remember our parents adjusting antennae in order to try to get a clearer signal from the local TV station. Television networks were an early example of a centralized content distribution platform. This tree like structure starts with a central trunk, and branch is like a local station and the leaves individual receivers. This isn’t an unfamiliar network like structure; we see it in airline schedules and in Internet streaming and broadcasting when using CDNs. Since broadcast signals weren’t very strong and didn’t go very far, many households typically had bad reception. Cable solved this problem by extending the coaxial cable all the way to the home — a different solution to the same “last mile” problem. This was a godsend for rural areas. I remember getting cable for the first time when we were living in rural North Dakota in the early 1980s — suddenly we could not only get the broadcast networks, we were able to access channels from far away like WTBS and WGN Chicago. Every new technology leads to new business models, often leaving behind existing players, and cable was no different. HBO, MTV, CNN, and other cable “stations” became common. Fortunes were created in this mass adoption of new technology and new business models (“subscription” and “pay TV”) and today, because of cable, the broadcast networks monopoly on content in homes is long over. Internet Streaming Still Relies on Central Sites Although Netflix started in the DVD era, where the Internet was used to simply place orders, it really came into its current position of dominance with the rise of video streaming via the universally available Netflix app. Today most TV networks have their own mobile apps which can be used to consume content in addition to watching it OTT (Over The Top) internet-based networks. The recent release of only via the CBS app and not having it show on the traditional CBS channels on broadcast or cable was a watershed moment in this regard. Star Trek: Discovery At the same time, websites like Youtube and Twitch have created a new mass market for user-generated content — which has stripped the cable networks and studios of being the only creators of content. Yet, despite the rise of these mega-websites, most high quality scripted entertainment content today, still comes via a largely centralized model, which is then sent down the pipe (Cable, OTT apps). Blockchain Relies on Decentralized Applications How might blockchain impact this ecosystem? The idea of a blockchain, first developed for cryptocurrency (ala Bitcoin) has the power to fundamentally disrupt the entertainment industry because it brings out a completely new, decentralized model for content distribution and monetization. In a blockchain, computers all over the world act together in a peer-to-peer network to work on some task. No central server, and no website or authority exists. The picture looks more like a mesh and not an orderly tree. On the business side, today Netflix and Cable still rely on the idea of “centralized” production, aggregation and distribution. Content creators must get past some number of “gatekeepers” and strike business deals with the network, which then puts it on a server and then distributes it over the air, via coaxial, or more recently, over the internet directly using CDNs (Content Delivery Networks like Akamai or Amazon CloudFront). What content is offered, when it’s offered, the price, and the distribution route are still very proprietary and hierarchical. In a decentralized world, no single website or authority would have a say over what “content” is to be distributed and how it will reach the “last mile”. No website would be able to block specific content. With DApps, or Decentralized Apps for Entertainment, whether it’s for live streaming or on-demand video, thousands of computers around the world would act as “broadcasters” in a mesh network that is not hierarchical. These “super nodes” would then solve the last mile problem by broadcasting the signal to computers that are geographically nearby. This will be particularly effective in countries which don’t have lots of presence from existing CDNs. A number of new crypto projects have cropped up that use either existing blockchains or completely new blockchains as infrastructure for decentralized video streaming. Some of these are optimized for ingesting and compressing content to make it available, some are end-to-end solutions, some are focused more on live streaming and some are better for streaming existing video files. My company, Theta Labs, is building a protocol that works for end to end live streaming and will have many DApps built on top of it. While the peer to peer delivery can help reduce the industry’s reliance on CDNs (a $20 billion industry today), the introduction of tokens with monetary value is as important to these new protocols as the delivery system and will lead to mainstream entertainment creators to adopt these systems much more quickly and enthusiastically than prior attempts. In the new blockchain model, tokens can be used to fund development of content, can be used by advertisers to bypass middlemen (networks), and can be used by consumers to pay for specific content. The Death of Netflix and Cable? Not only could these blockchain projects completely disrupt the distribution world because they no longer require centralized architectures, they can also disrupt the Netflixes of the world and make the idea of channels on cable completely obsolete. What is a channel but an aggregation of curated content over a well defined distribution network? Here are a few ways that a fully decentralized blockchain based entertainment network might disrupt the industry: ● . Content creators could create shows and make them available over a decentralized platform instantly — no need to go pitch a studio or try to get Netflix to put you on their system. No more “gatekeepers” or even websites that have to approve your content. Free Up Content Creators ● . End users can pay for content using tokens, or can pre-pay for content, resulting in novel new crowdfunding techniques to fund new TV series or movies. In a business model borrowed from video games, users of free live streams, can use tokens to reward the content creators with virtual gifts (which is already starting to happen in the esports world). This model could could be extended across different types of entertainment. Funding of Content ● New “channels” could be just aggregators of the content available on the network, again in a completely decentralized way. You could envision channels for esports, live events, fantasy, sci fi, news, etc. These channels can be set up by anyone and joined by content creators in a decentralized way and funded by tokens. New Channels. ● Free content could even disrupt the traditional TV advertising model (which is being followed by sites like YouTube) by using tokens. The new blockchain video projects usually provide tokens, which can be used by advertisers to buy advertising on these new decentralized channels. They can specify that those coins go directly to the content creator without having to have large middlemen taking a big chunk of the revenue — a large departure from existing practices where the middleman gets the biggest chunk. Advertising and Free Content. ● As for paid entertainment or subscription model, these new tokens could be used to subscribe to particular channels or to pay a particular content creator. This could replace cable on-demand and have unlimited choice of what can be seen “on-demand”. HBO and other subscription networks recently released their own apps so that you don’t need a cable subscription to watch them. The HBO may be a completely decentralized network that is not tied to cable at all but paid for by end users supplying tokens. Paid Content. next ● Many of the new protocols have incentive models that will encourage distributed peer to peer systems in new ways. Some require “paying” upstream nodes with tokens. In The Theta protocol, the introduction of mining of tokens becomes a way to “fund” the distribution network and an incentive to relay not just existing torrents but live streams world-wide. Today, entertainment companies may pay up to 50% of their operating budgets to delivery infrastructure, a cost that could be completely eliminated using a blockchain based token system as part of a peer to peer network. New entertainment players wouldn’t have this enormous cost to get started, and this could lead to an explosion of interesting content. Incentives for Infrastucture. Conclusion: Watch Out! Technology changes have always impacted the entertainment industry. While the internet has created new ways to consume content, the creation and distribution of high quality shows has for the most part still been dominated by a small number of players, studios, TV networks, cable providers, and aggregators like Netflix. This hasn’t led to the democratization of content that was the promise of the Internet. Blockchain is the next wave of technology and has the opportunity to fundamentally disrupt the entertainment industry by solving some of these problems. In a completely decentralized world, thousands of individual computers would replace the centralized “gate-keepers” and the tree-like orderly structure of content distribution would be replaced with a dynamic peer-to-peer mesh network. In this decentralized world, there would be no hoops for content creators to jump through to get their content up, no long business deals with gatekeepers, or getting only a fraction of advertising revenue. There would be no websites that users would go to in order to consume high quality video content. Moreover, the introduction of tokens create new interesting economic incentives for computers to share content, for streamers and content creators to use the network, for end users to compensate content creators, and create a new funding model for unique new entertainment content. Many of these projects will be going live towards the end of this year, and we can expect to see rapid growth of the new players in 2019 and 2020. Just as it took Netflix a number of years to displace Blockbuster and video rental stores as the dominant way to consume on-demand entertainment, it may take a number of years before the new decentralized blockcahin approach becomes the dominant trend in the industry. It’s just possible that because of blockchain, existing entertainment models (TV networks, cable companies and websites like Netflix) may go, as the Buggles might say, the way of the “radio star”. About Riz Riz Virk is an advisor, investor and the Head of Corporate Development at SLIVER.tv, and a member of the founding team at Theta Labs, Inc. He also serves as the current director of Play Labs @ MIT, and did his research at the MIT Media Lab. Rizwan is an early investor in cryptocurrency and many blockchain companies, including Ripio/BitPagos, CoinMkt, Bex.io, and has been active with BitAngels since 2013. He is the co-author of several crypto-currency related papers and columns including (2015), (2013), and . Rizwan received his BS in Computer Science & Engineering from MIT and his Master’s in Management from Stanford Graduate School of Business. Online Automatic Auctions for Bitcoin Over-The-Counter Trading Creating a Peer to Peer System for Buying and Selling Bitcoin Online How I Cornered the Bitcoin Mining Market With a Quantum Computer (Theoretically)

Why Blockchain Might Kill Both Cable and Netflix

Net Neutrality in 12 Tweets

Popular YouTuber OMI IN A HELLCAT was raided by the FBI last year in connection with his 'pirate' IPTV service Gears TV. With the authorities refusing to comment on the ongoing investigation, OMI himself is now claiming that Comcast prompted the FBI to take action, knowing that to tackle him on their own would be "an uphill battle". When large ‘pirate’ services are taken down, the tendency is for copyright holders and/or the authorities to make a lot of noise. Taking out big players is seen as an achievement and is often held up as an example to others not to follow the same path. Last November, when the founder of Gears Reloaded ‘pirate’ IPTV service Omar Carrasquillo was reportedly , not a single person in authority would confirm the existence of an investigation. Independent eyewitnesses to reveal what they saw but now, several months on, information from official sources remains non-existent. targeted in a massive FBI raid appeared on TV Carrasquillo, better known by his social media handle OMI IN A HELLCAT, has been talking a lot, however. He’s appeared in TV interviews with his lawyer, decrying the seizure of dozens of luxury cars, huge volumes of jewelry, and . He says the entire operation against him grew out of his position as the founder of Gears, an unpaid tax bill, plus allegations of money laundering. “at least” $5.2m in cash Nevertheless, he keeps maintaining his innocence. Time and again he’s said that capturing live TV broadcasters from cable providers and streaming channels to end-users over the Internet at an affordable price is completely legal. He found a loophole, he says, and companies didn’t like it. Until now, Carrasquillo has never directly pointed a finger at who might have prompted the case against him. In a live stream this week, however, he claimed that the second-largest telecoms company in the United States is at the root of his troubles. (Note: most expletives removed) “There’s nothing worse than coming home and grabbing your bills – electric company you gotta pay, water is an essential, gas you need to cook, $300 cable bill – what the fuck?” he said. “Everybody hates the cable companies, they’re a monopoly. So when you come out with a service that’s affordable to the world and it’s not illegal, oh my God, I’m in somebody’s pocket.” And then the bombshell. “Comcast is paying for this investigation [unintelligible]. There’s an unfiled Comcast claim but why didn’t Comcast sue me? ‘Cos they knew it was an uphill battle so what did they do? They got the FBI involved, tried to take me down,” he . claimed Coincidentally or not, Carrasquillo’s main home is in Philadelphia. Comcast has its headquarters in the same city. According to several videos posted by Carrasquillo in recent weeks, he has been working hard behind the scenes through official channels to try and reclaim his property. However, he claims there has been significant pushback after the FBI began using his videos and social media postings as evidence against him. Insisting again and again that streaming captured TV broadcasts to the public is not illegal, Carrasquillo says he filed a motion to get his property back. In response, the FBI had to send in evidence to support why the goods should continue to be held while the investigation continues. According to him, they “took his [social media] posts and sent them to the judge”. Since the raid, most of Carrasquillo’s posts have centered on him getting back on his feet, allegedly making significant amounts of money, some of it used to replenish his car collection. He believes those videos are now undermining him. “Look judge, he’s saying that he’s still a millionaire, he doesn’t need the money. We can still hold it throughout the whole investigation,” he in a mocking summary of what was allegedly reported to the court. said At this point, Carrasquillo seems to imply that not everything portrayed in those videos and postings should necessarily be taken at face value and that, in some cases, those in the entertainment business may face pressures to impress. “Entertainers, we have a certain image to uphold and this is why I don’t show anything anymore because frankly, it ain’t nobody’s business. Whether I got it or I don’t got it, I ain’t gonna say it no more. Because obviously you’re using what I say as an exhibit and send it to the judge,” he added. Carrasquillo says he’s hoping to settle his case with the IRS via a payment plan but he insists that any claims of money laundering are nonsense. He says he’s not upset with anyone working on the case and says that he’s “pretty sure” that the two investigators and district attorneys “are pretty nice guys.” That said, he is unhappy with what he describes as an “unethical process and the events that took place.” Just before he was raided, Carrasquillo went to the Dominican Republic and he believes this prompted the authorities to act earlier than they would’ve preferred. “Be honest you guys came to [sic] early I broke no laws apology accepted,” he in a separate post. “While Gears is down 20 more shitty services came up and I don’t see you guys doing shit about it. Want to know why? Steaming isn’t illegal. It’s victimless and not against the law. I did not host shit on servers this was a matter for copyright holders to sue. Not for the FBI to get involved.” wrote Only time will tell when the other side of this pretty one-sided story will see the light of day. As indicated previously, no one in authority is prepared to comment at this stage. Originally published as “ OMI IN A HELLCAT Claims Comcast Got FBI to Pursue Gears IPTV Case ” with the Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC 3.0) license

Comcast Got FBI to Pursue Gears IPTV Case - Claims YouTuber OMI IN A HELLCAT

The Alarming Surge Of Lateral Phishing – Are We All Just Sitting Ducks?

If you ever wondered how to add your company’s logo to your emails, this article is for you. Today, Selzy covers everything about email avatars and their impact on business. What Is an Email Avatar, and Why Do You Need It? You might not know what email avatar is, but you’ve definitely seen one in your inbox. An email avatar is a small circle with an image that appears next to the sender’s name and address, helping recipients identify senders. It can also be called an email profile picture or an email profile logo. By default, mailbox providers assign generic nondescript avatars to new users. Usually, it’s the first letter of the sender’s name. Unlike on social media in emails, profile pictures don’t seem to be a must: even service emails from Google or Yahoo don’t have an avatar. That’s why emails that have an avatar tend to stand out more. Look at the screenshot below: Which messages did you look at first? The chances are that emails from Morning Brew and Mike Allen immediately grabbed your attention. And only then, you scanned the other two, with L and A letters instead of pictures. Email avatars aren’t just visually striking, they also bring tangible value. According to the 2023 Consumer Email Tracker report by DMA, 61% of people decide to open the email because they recognize the brand, and 39% do so because they recognize the brand logo. For senders, it means that an email avatar, especially a branded one, will likely increase open rates. Different Avatar Types Automatically Generated Avatar That’s the default option. Usually, a mailbox provider assigns a logo with the first letter of your or your brand’s name. Instead of a letter, it can be a human silhouette, but still just as nondescript. Company Logo Company logos as avatars are a solid option to promote brand recall and stand out among competitors in an inbox. This helps recipients quickly identify marketing messages from their favorite brands in a cluttered inbox. Custom Images Custom images — usually photos — help subscribers recognize you faster. An example: journalist Mike Allen uses a photo in his Axios newsletter. Interestingly, emails from Axios as a company don’t have a logo. How to Add Email Avatars for Different Mailbox Providers Adding an email avatar is a simple process, similar for different mailbox providers: go to account settings, click the email avatar, and upload or choose the picture to replace the auto-generated one. The tricky part is that avatars don’t get displayed across different mailbox providers. If you send from Outlook to Gmail, Gmail recipients won’t see an avatar you set in Outlook. If you want to send bulk emails with an ESP and have your profile picture displayed in any inbox, create a corporate email domain, and link it to each mailbox provider. Then, set a profile picture for this domain in each mailbox provider separately. Let’s explore how to add profile logos across different mailbox providers and what nuance you might need to take into account. Gmail Go to Google Workspace account settings, choose an image from your computer, and crop it. Gmail doesn’t have any requirements for image size or format. Google Workspace allows users with different addresses belonging to the same email domain to have unique profile pictures. It’s useful when you send multiple newsletters and want each newsletter to have its unique email avatar. On mobile devices, you can see email avatars in the Gmail app right in the inbox; they also appear in push notifications. On the desktop, they appear only inside opened emails. Outlook On the Outlook home page, click on the avatar at the top of the page, choose Edit profile, and add or change the profile picture in the settings. It will only show up in the mobile apps and inside opened emails on the desktop. Although Outlook is a big email provider, not many seem to use it to the fullest. The same brands and newsletters we covered earlier in the article don’t have a profile picture in Outlook. Then again, even Outlook’s support team doesn’t have one. Go to Yahoo’s main page and, depending on the platform (desktop, web app, or mobile), change the profile picture to your liking. Default Yahoo avatars are stylized letters of the sender’s name, but you can always replace them with a profile picture. Once you set a profile picture, you can’t remove it and revert to stylized letters — you can only replace it with a new one. Your email avatar will be displayed in all Yahoo services — for example, in Yahoo! News comment section. Some users can choose to not see senders’ profile pictures in their inboxes and have the profile pictures replaced with checkboxes for a more minimalistic look. Apple Mail Having your brand’s logo displayed in Apple Mail is not possible unless subscribers decide to assign it by themselves. They have to create a new contact from the email address, and then choose to add a photo to get to set up an avatar — which can be any picture. The senders won’t see them. Avatar vs BIMI One more way to add an email avatar is BIMI or Brand Indicators for Message Identification. The result will be the same —  your email profile picture will be in place — however, with BIMI, you get logos and better protection for your recipients from phishing attacks. BIMI is a method of email authentication, in addition to DKIM, DMARC, and SPF. “In addition” is the keyword — to get BIMI, you need to set up the DMARC authentication first. From that perspective, getting BIMI sounds like a good thing to do, but there’s a “but” — it costs at least $1,299 per year. That’s because you have to buy a digital certificate that proves you own your logo as a trademark. That’s a bummer for businesses that don’t have twelve hundred bucks to spend on a 32 KB image. Moreover, BIMI is not universally supported yet. As of May 2024, Microsoft doesn’t even plan to implement it, and some email clients like Yahoo! Japan, Seznam.cz, Comcast, and Qualitia are only considering it. So, if the majority of your audience is not in the US, getting BIMI might simply be not worth it. Email Avatar vs Gravatar Gravatar occasionally pops up in conversations about email avatars. However, you can’t set an avatar for a mailbox provider (Gmail or Yahoo) with Gravatar because it is meant for a different use. Gravatar is a service that helps you automatically set profile pictures, contact details, and even a short bio for websites on WordPress and a handful of services that are heavily used in the work setting, like Atlassian products, Slack, and GitHub. Gravatar is especially useful with WordPress websites since it saves you from the trouble of uploading a profile picture each time you want to leave a comment on a new WordPress website. Here’s what the setup process looks like: Sign up on Gravatar with your email address.


Upload an image or a photo you like.


Going forward, you’ll have your profile picture displayed on every WordPress website or supported service, provided you sign up with the same email address as on Gravatar. Key Takeaways Avatars help emails stand out and impact the open rate. Unique logos look more pronounced than generic ones, recipients also trust them more. You can add company logos or your photos for email avatars. Your company will stand out in subscribers’ inboxes while a photo helps subscribers immediately recognize who sent the email. Email avatars are only seen within the same mailbox provider. Create a corporate account in each mailbox provider and set an avatar. Otherwise, if you only have Gmail with a logo, your Outlook subscribers won’t see it. Use BIMI to add logos and improve security but be ready to pay. BIMI gives you a trademark logo and protection from phishing attacks. It costs at least $1,299 a year while avatars without BIMI are free. If you ever wondered how to add your company’s logo to your emails, this article is for you. Today, Selzy covers everything about email avatars and their impact on business. Selzy What Is an Email Avatar, and Why Do You Need It? What Is an Email Avatar, and Why Do You Need It? You might not know what email avatar is, but you’ve definitely seen one in your inbox. An email avatar is a small circle with an image that appears next to the sender’s name and address, helping recipients identify senders. It can also be called an email profile picture or an email profile logo. By default, mailbox providers assign generic nondescript avatars to new users. Usually, it’s the first letter of the sender’s name. Unlike on social media in emails, profile pictures don’t seem to be a must: even service emails from Google or Yahoo don’t have an avatar. That’s why emails that have an avatar tend to stand out more. Look at the screenshot below: Which messages did you look at first? The chances are that emails from Morning Brew and Mike Allen immediately grabbed your attention. And only then, you scanned the other two, with L and A letters instead of pictures. L A Email avatars aren’t just visually striking, they also bring tangible value. According to the 2023 Consumer Email Tracker report by DMA, 61% of people decide to open the email because they recognize the brand, and 39% do so because they recognize the brand logo. For senders, it means that an email avatar, especially a branded one, will likely increase open rates. According to the 2023 Consumer Email Tracker report by DMA, 61% of people decide to open the email because they recognize the brand, and 39% do so because they recognize the brand logo. Consumer Email Tracker Consumer Email Tracker Different Avatar Types Different Avatar Types Automatically Generated Avatar Automatically Generated Avatar That’s the default option. Usually, a mailbox provider assigns a logo with the first letter of your or your brand’s name. Instead of a letter, it can be a human silhouette, but still just as nondescript. Company Logo Company Logo Company logos as avatars are a solid option to promote brand recall and stand out among competitors in an inbox. This helps recipients quickly identify marketing messages from their favorite brands in a cluttered inbox. Custom Images Custom Images Custom images — usually photos — help subscribers recognize you faster. An example: journalist Mike Allen uses a photo in his Axios newsletter. Interestingly, emails from Axios as a company don’t have a logo. How to Add Email Avatars for Different Mailbox Providers How to Add Email Avatars for Different Mailbox Providers Adding an email avatar is a simple process, similar for different mailbox providers: go to account settings, click the email avatar, and upload or choose the picture to replace the auto-generated one. The tricky part is that avatars don’t get displayed across different mailbox providers. If you send from Outlook to Gmail, Gmail recipients won’t see an avatar you set in Outlook. If you want to send bulk emails with an ESP and have your profile picture displayed in any inbox, create a corporate email domain, and link it to each mailbox provider. Then, set a profile picture for this domain in each mailbox provider separately. bulk emails with an ESP bulk emails with an ESP Let’s explore how to add profile logos across different mailbox providers and what nuance you might need to take into account. Gmail Gmail Go to Google Workspace account settings , choose an image from your computer, and crop it. Gmail doesn’t have any requirements for image size or format. Google Workspace account settings Google Workspace account settings Google Workspace allows users with different addresses belonging to the same email domain to have unique profile pictures. It’s useful when you send multiple newsletters and want each newsletter to have its unique email avatar. On mobile devices, you can see email avatars in the Gmail app right in the inbox; they also appear in push notifications. On the desktop, they appear only inside opened emails. Outlook Outlook On the Outlook home page, click on the avatar at the top of the page, choose Edit profile, and add or change the profile picture in the settings. It will only show up in the mobile apps and inside opened emails on the desktop. change the profile picture change the profile picture Although Outlook is a big email provider, not many seem to use it to the fullest. The same brands and newsletters we covered earlier in the article don’t have a profile picture in Outlook. Then again, even Outlook’s support team doesn’t have one. Go to Yahoo’s main page and, depending on the platform (desktop, web app, or mobile), change the profile picture to your liking. Default Yahoo avatars are stylized letters of the sender’s name, but you can always replace them with a profile picture. depending on the platform depending on the platform Once you set a profile picture, you can’t remove it and revert to stylized letters — you can only replace it with a new one. Your email avatar will be displayed in all Yahoo services — for example, in Yahoo! News comment section. Some users can choose to not see senders’ profile pictures in their inboxes and have the profile pictures replaced with checkboxes for a more minimalistic look. checkboxes checkboxes Apple Mail Apple Mail Having your brand’s logo displayed in Apple Mail is not possible unless subscribers decide to assign it by themselves. They have to create a new contact from the email address, and then choose to add a photo to get to set up an avatar — which can be any picture. The senders won’t see them. Avatar vs BIMI Avatar vs BIMI One more way to add an email avatar is BIMI or Brand Indicators for Message Identification. The result will be the same —  your email profile picture will be in place — however, with BIMI, you get logos and better protection for your recipients from phishing attacks. BIMI BIMI and BIMI is a method of email authentication, in addition to DKIM, DMARC, and SPF. “In addition” is the keyword — to get BIMI, you need to set up the DMARC authentication first. From that perspective, getting BIMI sounds like a good thing to do, but there’s a “but” — it costs at least $1,299 per year . That’s because you have to buy a digital certificate that proves you own your logo as a trademark. That’s a bummer for businesses that don’t have twelve hundred bucks to spend on a 32 KB image. $1,299 per year $1,299 per year Moreover, BIMI is not universally supported yet. As of May 2024 , Microsoft doesn’t even plan to implement it, and some email clients like Yahoo! Japan, Seznam.cz, Comcast, and Qualitia are only considering it. So, if the majority of your audience is not in the US, getting BIMI might simply be not worth it. As of May 2024 As of May 2024 Email Avatar vs Gravatar Email Avatar vs Gravatar Gravatar occasionally pops up in conversations about email avatars. However, you can’t set an avatar for a mailbox provider (Gmail or Yahoo) with Gravatar because it is meant for a different use. Gravatar Gravatar Gravatar is a service that helps you automatically set profile pictures, contact details, and even a short bio for websites on WordPress and a handful of services that are heavily used in the work setting, like Atlassian products, Slack, and GitHub. Gravatar is especially useful with WordPress websites since it saves you from the trouble of uploading a profile picture each time you want to leave a comment on a new WordPress website. Here’s what the setup process looks like: Sign up on Gravatar with your email address. Upload an image or a photo you like. Going forward, you’ll have your profile picture displayed on every WordPress website or supported service, provided you sign up with the same email address as on Gravatar. Sign up on Gravatar with your email address. Sign up on Gravatar with your email address. Upload an image or a photo you like. Upload an image or a photo you like. Going forward, you’ll have your profile picture displayed on every WordPress website or supported service, provided you sign up with the same email address as on Gravatar. Going forward, you’ll have your profile picture displayed on every WordPress website or supported service, provided you sign up with the same email address as on Gravatar. Key Takeaways Key Takeaways Avatars help emails stand out and impact the open rate. Unique logos look more pronounced than generic ones, recipients also trust them more. Avatars help emails stand out and impact the open rate. Unique logos look more pronounced than generic ones, recipients also trust them more. Avatars help emails stand out and impact the open rate. You can add company logos or your photos for email avatars. Your company will stand out in subscribers’ inboxes while a photo helps subscribers immediately recognize who sent the email. You can add company logos or your photos for email avatars. Your company will stand out in subscribers’ inboxes while a photo helps subscribers immediately recognize who sent the email. You can add company logos or your photos for email avatars. Email avatars are only seen within the same mailbox provider. Create a corporate account in each mailbox provider and set an avatar. Otherwise, if you only have Gmail with a logo, your Outlook subscribers won’t see it. Email avatars are only seen within the same mailbox provider. Create a corporate account in each mailbox provider and set an avatar. Otherwise, if you only have Gmail with a logo, your Outlook subscribers won’t see it. Email avatars are only seen within the same mailbox provider. Use BIMI to add logos and improve security but be ready to pay. BIMI gives you a trademark logo and protection from phishing attacks. It costs at least $1,299 a year while avatars without BIMI are free. Use BIMI to add logos and improve security but be ready to pay. BIMI gives you a trademark logo and protection from phishing attacks. It costs at least $1,299 a year while avatars without BIMI are free. Use BIMI to add logos and improve security but be ready to pay.

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This paper is under CC 4.0 license. available on arxiv Authors: (1) Hatem A. Alharbi, CSchool of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom; (2) Taisir E.H. Elgorashi, School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom; (3) Jaafar M.H. Elmirghani, School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom. Table of Links Abstract & Introduction Related Works Repealing Net Neutrality Profit-Driven Model Results Conclusions & References Biographies V. CONCLUSIONS In this paper, we developed a MILP model to optimize the pricing scheme used by ISPs to charge CPs for delivering their video content under the repeal of net neutrality where ISPs can treat data intensive traffic less favorably. A techno-economic Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model is developed to maximize the ISP profit by optimizing the ISP pricing scheme to charge different classes of service differently subject to PED. We considered three classes of service that represent different data rate requirements of video content. The analysis addressed three CP delivery scenarios; cloud-based delivery, cloud-fog based delivery and fog-based delivery. The results show that the discriminatory pricing scheme can increase the ISPs profit by a factor of 8. The results also show that by influencing the way end-users consume data-intensive content, the core network traffic and consequently power consumption are reduced by up to 49% and 55%, respectively, compared to the net neutrality scenario. Acknowledgements The authors would like to acknowledge funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), INTERNET (EP/H040536/1), STAR (EP/K016873/1) and TOWS (EP/S016570/1) projects. The first author would like to acknowledge the Government of Saudi Arabia and Taibah University for funding his PhD scholarship. All data are provided in full in the results section of this paper. REFERENCES Cisco, “The Zettabyte Era: Trends and Analysis,” 2017. , “AT&T Profit Margin (Quarterly),” 2018. [Online]. Available: . [Accessed: 01-Aug-2018]. Ycharts.com https://ycharts.com/companies/T/profit_margin Ycharts, “Netflix Profit Margin (Quarterly),” 2018. [Online]. Available: .
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Impact of the Net Neutrality Repeal on Communication Networks: Conclusions & References

This paper is under CC 4.0 license. available on arxiv Authors: (1) Hatem A. Alharbi, CSchool of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom; (2) Taisir E.H. Elgorashi, School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom; (3) Jaafar M.H. Elmirghani, School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom. Table of Links Abstract & Introduction Related Works Repealing Net Neutrality Profit-Driven Model Results Conclusions & References Biographies IV. PROFIT-DRIVEN MODEL RESULTS: In this section, we evaluate the increase in ISP profit and the reduction in network traffic and subsequently power consumption resulting from the optimized pricing scheme under the repeal of net neutrality. We define the three services classes as follows; • Class A; for UHD video service; 18 Mbps download rate. • Class B; for HD video service; 7.2 Mbps download rate. • Class C; for SD video service; 2 Mbps download rate. We investigate CP’s end users’ choices of service classes based on different PED. We show how users behavior under the different PED; 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1 or 2 affects the equilibrium price of each class the ISP charges the CP for delivering its content. As discussed above, we assume that the CP will transfer the price increase to their customers at the same rate (if the CP absorbs some of the increase in prices, then this may represent a different PED). As a benchmark, we consider users to be distributed among classes according to the Cisco forecast report [45], where UHD, HD, and SD users distribution are 19%, 56% and 25% respectively. We consider 1.8 million users active simultaneously in the network. This figure is obtained as follows: The number of users is 44 million users in Netflix in the US and the average user spent around 1 hour per day watching movies in 2015 [46]. Therefore, the average number of users during one hour of the day is 1.8 million users, which is an average number that does not consider the popularity of different viewing times in the day. The concentration of users at any node in AT&T network is based on the population of the state where the node is located (see Fig. 2). We consider the BT network connectivity selling price as the net neutrality price of the three classes where 10 Gbps connectivity is priced at £12,600 ($15,750) per year [47], i.e. $131 per 1 Gbps link per month. The actual cost of provisioning ISP core network infrastructure is sensitive information and not usually shared by ISPs. However, we estimate the cost of provisioning 1 Gbps of network as $118 considering 10% as the ISP profit margin (the average profit margin for AT&T [2] and Comcast [48] were approximately 9% and 12%, respectively between 2013-2018). We divided the cost among the three network layers; core, metro and access network based on their power consumption percentages: 24%, 6% and 70%, respectively [49] which corresponds to $28, $7, $83, respectively. The cost of $28 per Gbps in the core network is associated with a single hop. For the AT&T architecture the average hop count between clouds and other nodes is 1. As shown in Fig. 2, we choose AT&T core network (a primary core network topology in the US) as a core network topology example. This core network consists of 25 nodes and 54 bidirectional links. AT&T hosts datacenters in nodes 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 11, 13, 17, 19, 20, 22, and 25 [50]. These nodes are used to host datacenters to serve distributed CPs users. The input parameters used are given in Table I. In the following subsections, we evaluate two scenarios; equal PED for all classes and different PED for different classes. Under each scenario we study three scenarios of delivering CPs contents to users; a cloud-based delivery and a cloud-fog based deliver and fog-based delivery. 1) Equal PED among classes: In the following, we study three scenarios of delivering CPs contents to users; a cloud-based delivery and a cloud-fog based delivery and fog-based delivery. Figs. 3 to 5 show the profit-driven model results for AT&T core network where content is delivered from the 12 datacenters in the AT&T topology [50]. The number of users and the corresponding price of each class under different PED are illustrated in Fig. 3. The primary y-axis shows price per Gbps per month of each class in US dollar. These prices represent the equilibrium point of users’ willingness to follow the price increase which results in maximum profit for the ISP. The secondary y-axis corresponds to the percentage of users subscribed to each class. The x-axis shows different PED scenarios from 2 to 0.2. The former represents the highest sensitivity to the price change considered, whereas, the latter represents the contrary. PED values are shown along with the case of net neutrality where the price of different classes is fixed at 113$ and the percentage of users in each class follows Cisco forecast report [45] as discussed above. For each PED value we consider two cases; a case where the optimized pricing scheme should maintain 100% of the users that existed under net neutrality ( ≥ 100) and another case where the pricing scheme can result in users leaving the service ( ≥ 0). Cloud based delivery: LB LB Fig. 4 is a plot of the monthly profit of ISP considering different PED values as well as net neutrality scenario. Total traffic of core network and the power consumption due to this traffic under different PED scenarios and the net neutrality scenario are plotted in Fig. 5. In case of content with = 2, under ≥ 100 or ≥ 0 , Fig. 3 shows that repealing net neutrality has increased class C users to 48% of the total number of users compared to 14% only under the net neutrality pricing scheme. This increase is a result of some users of class B downgrading to class C as the class B price increased slightly by 18% (the number of users in class B reduced to 36%) and due to new users joining the service (the total number of users increased to 102%) attracted by the 1% decrease in class C price. The users of class A are reduced to 18% of the total number of users as a result of the slight increase in price by 19%. This pricing scheme and distribution of users have resulted in an increase in the total profit by 54% compared to the net neutrality scenario as seen in Fig. 4. For a less sensitive content with = 0.2 under ≥ 0, the equilibrium pricing scheme resulted in 28% of the users leaving the service as the increase in the classes price resulted in an increase in the profit by a factor of 8.3 compared to the net neutrality scenario. Maintaining all the users of the service ( ≥ 100) has slightly reduced the profit by 10%. PED LB LB PED LB LB In addition to growing ISP profit, we also observe in Fig. 5 a decline in the core network traffic by up to 55% under = 0.2, ≥ 0 and a consequent reduction in power consumption by 49%. This reduction in core network traffic and power consumption occurred for two reasons; 1) some cloud service users leave classes A and B to subscribe to class C as the charges per Gb/s of the classes A and B increase. 2) the total cloud service subscribers diminished due to the increase in class C price (in case of ≥ 0). PED LB LB Next, we introduce 10 fog nodes in addition to the 12 datacenter locations. These fog nodes are assumed to be built in the proximity of nodes with the highest population in the AT&T core network, so no core network cost (Ͼ) is incurred by serving the demands of these nodes. Fig. 6 shows that the prices per Gbps per month under different PED that are less than the previous case (cloud-based delivery) as we reduced the cost of the core network by introducing the fog nodes. Under = 2, the prices compared to the net neutrality case in class A and B increased by 12% and 11%, respectively, while the price of class C dropped by 1% as opposed to 19%, 18% and 1% with cloud-based delivery. The reduced prices attracted more users resulting in increase in the profit by 18% compared to the net neutrality case as seen in Fig. 7 as opposed to a 54% increase in profit with cloud-based delivery. Fig. 8 shows a reduction in core network traffic (40%) and power consumption (35%) by repealing net neutrality in the cloud-fog architecture. Cloud-Fog based delivery: PED Here, we consider a scenario in which all users access CP contents from a local fog node. Although deploying a fog node locally, to serve CP customers, increases the capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operating expenses (OPEX) of provisioning multiple locations (i.e. 25 fog nodes in AT&T network), it reduces the communication network transit cost burden to the minimum. However, fog nodes are not always an option due to the finite capacity of processing and storage. The results show that the prices are further reduced under fog-based delivery (Fig. 9) as no core network cost (Ͼ) is incurred by serving demands. For instance, under PED = 2, the prices compared to the net neutrality case in class A and B increased by 9% while the price of class C is decreased by 11% resulting in increase in the profit by 6% compared to the net neutrality scenario as seen in Fig. 10. Fog based delivery: 2) Different PED among classes: In this section, we consider a scenario where elasticity of demand varies among the different classes of service. We consider class C to be less sensitive to price change than class B. Also, we considered class B to be less sensitive than class A. The elasticity of demand for classes A, B and C are considered to be 2, 0.8 and 0.2, respectively. Fig. 11 shows the price per Gbps for classes A and B is the same under different scenarios and delivery schemes as a result of the high PED of class A. Class C is priced at the same level of classes A and B for ≥ 0 as the low PED of class C limits the number of users leaving the services as a result of increase in the price. Fig. 12 shows an increase in profit by up to 88%, 29% and 16% under cloudbased delivery, cloud-fog based delivery and fog-based delivery, respectively, compared to the net neutrality scenario. Fig 13 shows a decrease in core network traffic by up to 43% and 30% under cloud-based delivery and cloud-fog based delivery, respectively, compared to the net neutrality scenario. Also, the total reduction in the core network power consumption (as shown in Fig 14) is up to 40% and 32% under cloud-based delivery and cloud-fog based delivery respectively. LB

Impact of the Net Neutrality Repeal on Communication Networks: Profit-Driven Model Results

This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license.
Authors:
(1) Hatem A. Alharbi, CSchool of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom;
(2) Taisir E.H. Elgorashi, School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom;
(3) Jaafar M.H. Elmirghani, School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom. Table of Links Abstract & Introduction Related Works Repealing Net Neutrality Profit-Driven Model Results Conclusions & References Biographies Abstract Network neutrality (net neutrality) is the principle of treating equally all Internet traffic regardless of its source, destination, content, application or other related distinguishing metrics. Under net neutrality, ISPs are compelled to charge all content providers (CPs) the same per Gbps rate despite the growing profit achieved by CPs. In this paper, we study the impact of the repeal of net neutrality on communication networks by developing a techno-economic Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model to maximize the potential profit ISPs can achieve by offering their services to CPs. We focus on video delivery as video traffic accounts for 78% of the cloud traffic. We consider an ISP that offers CPs different classes of service representing typical video content qualities including standard definition (SD), high definition (HD) and ultra-high definition (UHD) video. The MILP model maximizes the ISP profit by optimizing the prices of the different classes according to the users demand sensitivity to the change in price, referred to as Price Elasticity of Demand (PED). We analyze how PED impacts the profit in different CP delivery scenarios in cloud-fog architectures. The results show that the repeal of net neutrality can potentially increase ISPs profit by a factor of 8 with a pricing scheme that discriminates against data intensive content. Also, the repeal of net neutrality positively impacts the network energy efficiency by reducing the core network power consumption by 55% as a result of suppressing data intensive content compared to the net neutrality scenario. Index Terms— Net neutrality, AT&T, IP over WDM networks, profit, power consumption. I. INTRODUCTION Network (net) neutrality regulations prohibit ISPs from applying different treatment to IP packets based on their content e.g. prioritizing, blocking or throttling certain Internet content or allowing quality differentiation. Net neutrality, which was scrapped by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in December 2017, has been the subject of remarkable debate in recent years between ISPs and CPs with each side trying to exploit their assets and expand their profit and influence. The debate is fueled by the rapidly escalating demand for CPs services as a result of the interconnection between Internet and broadcasting markets. Cisco forecasts [1] that by 2021, annual global Internet traffic will hit 2.2 Zettabytes per month and CPs datacenters will be the source of 71% of this traffic. Online video services are the primary cause of this accelerated growth in Internet traffic. Video streaming is poised to consume 78% of the total CPs bandwidth with 75% of Internet video traffic originating from higher video services quality (HD and UHD). Proponents of preferential treatment of Internet traffic complain that the increasing demand for data-intensive content creates a significant burden on the communication network. They argue that removing net neutrality will give ISPs further control of their infrastructure, which is crucial in order to improve QoS and reduce security threats. Another argument is that a significant fraction of the profit of this tremendously growing market is seized by CPs whereas ISPs act as a transit or transport medium into CPs customers. In the US, the quarterly profit margin of AT&T (an ISP) has been almost stable over the last six years whereas Netflix (a CP) profit margin has risen up in rapid pace from 0.7% to 9.8% within the same period [2], [3]. In contrast, advocates warn that removing net neutrality will slow down the innovation in the Internet and its content and will limit the content competition by disadvantaging small businesses, and subsequently, diminish online services. Deploying traffic discrimination in video delivery services has many challenges, e.g. detecting video packets and enforcing a policy on a certain video quality. Traffic discrimination in IP communication networks has been surveyed intensively in the literature. Several traffic management practices have been surveyed in [4]. The authors highlighted that traffic discrimination taxonomy has four features: (i) characteristics or condition of the traffic (e.g. based on content, protocol or source/destination); (ii) traffic classification (e.g. based on flow rate, header information or routing); (iii) mechanism of discrimination (e.g. modify, delay, drop or block); and (iv) perceived discrimination by end-users. Video traffic can be analyzed using two mechanisms; deep packet inspection (DPI) [5], [6] or traffic profiling [7], [8]. DPI examines the data packets that are sent over the network and traffic profiling detects abnormal network traffic by comparing new traffic against previous traffic profile. For example, an alarm can be triggered if the data rate transmitted over the network (measured in bps) spikes above the desired data rate, which could indicate an increase in data rate. QoS for video services delivery can be applied either by reserving network bandwidth for video packets (e.g. using IntServ) or labelling video content as high priority e.g. by applying Differentiated Services (e.g. using DiffServ) [9]. The Internet ecosystem is complex with many stakeholders. As illustrated in Fig. 1, the main stakeholders in the Internet ecosystem are; ISPs, CPs, content delivery networks (CDNs) and end-users. Users pay ISPs a subscription fee to get Internet access and subscribe to CPs (if required) to access their content. CPs subscribe to a CDN to access storage and processing capacity and to deliver their content to customers. CDNs are responsible for sending CPs content at large scale over ISPs network infrastructure, e.g. the CP Netflix collaborates with the CDN Amazon Web Services (AWS) to reach their customers [10]. ISPs play as the key intermediary in the delivery process as they provide the required connectivity between users and content. Most ISPs such as AT&T [11] and Comcast [12] are now providing CDN services in additional to networking services. To simplify our analysis, we consider a direct relationship between ISP and CPs. Due to net neutrality regulations, current pricing policy of ISP networking services applies a fixed charge which is not linked with bitrate usage. For example, in the US, AT&T uses a fixed pricing model by charging CPs $3,282 per 10 Gbps per month [13] regardless of the content type transferred to users (either UHD video content or a simple text message). The rest of this paper is organized as follows: Section II briefly summarizes related work. We describe the pricing scheme we used in this paper and the profit-driven model we adopted in Section III. Our results are presented in Section IV. In Section V, we provide concluding remarks. This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. Authors: (1) Hatem A. Alharbi, CSchool of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom; (2) Taisir E.H. Elgorashi, School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom; (3) Jaafar M.H. Elmirghani, School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom. This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. available on arxiv Authors: Authors: (1) Hatem A. Alharbi, CSchool of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom; (2) Taisir E.H. Elgorashi, School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom; (3) Jaafar M.H. Elmirghani, School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom. Table of Links Abstract & Introduction Abstract & Introduction Related Works Related Works Repealing Net Neutrality Repealing Net Neutrality Profit-Driven Model Results Profit-Driven Model Results Conclusions & References Conclusions & References Biographies Biographies Abstract Network neutrality (net neutrality) is the principle of treating equally all Internet traffic regardless of its source, destination, content, application or other related distinguishing metrics. Under net neutrality, ISPs are compelled to charge all content providers (CPs) the same per Gbps rate despite the growing profit achieved by CPs. In this paper, we study the impact of the repeal of net neutrality on communication networks by developing a techno-economic Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model to maximize the potential profit ISPs can achieve by offering their services to CPs. We focus on video delivery as video traffic accounts for 78% of the cloud traffic. We consider an ISP that offers CPs different classes of service representing typical video content qualities including standard definition (SD), high definition (HD) and ultra-high definition (UHD) video. The MILP model maximizes the ISP profit by optimizing the prices of the different classes according to the users demand sensitivity to the change in price, referred to as Price Elasticity of Demand (PED). We analyze how PED impacts the profit in different CP delivery scenarios in cloud-fog architectures. The results show that the repeal of net neutrality can potentially increase ISPs profit by a factor of 8 with a pricing scheme that discriminates against data intensive content. Also, the repeal of net neutrality positively impacts the network energy efficiency by reducing the core network power consumption by 55% as a result of suppressing data intensive content compared to the net neutrality scenario. Index Terms — Net neutrality, AT&T, IP over WDM networks, profit, power consumption. Index Terms I. INTRODUCTION Network (net) neutrality regulations prohibit ISPs from applying different treatment to IP packets based on their content e.g. prioritizing, blocking or throttling certain Internet content or allowing quality differentiation. Net neutrality, which was scrapped by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in December 2017, has been the subject of remarkable debate in recent years between ISPs and CPs with each side trying to exploit their assets and expand their profit and influence. The debate is fueled by the rapidly escalating demand for CPs services as a result of the interconnection between Internet and broadcasting markets. Cisco forecasts [1] that by 2021, annual global Internet traffic will hit 2.2 Zettabytes per month and CPs datacenters will be the source of 71% of this traffic. Online video services are the primary cause of this accelerated growth in Internet traffic. Video streaming is poised to consume 78% of the total CPs bandwidth with 75% of Internet video traffic originating from higher video services quality (HD and UHD). Proponents of preferential treatment of Internet traffic complain that the increasing demand for data-intensive content creates a significant burden on the communication network. They argue that removing net neutrality will give ISPs further control of their infrastructure, which is crucial in order to improve QoS and reduce security threats. Another argument is that a significant fraction of the profit of this tremendously growing market is seized by CPs whereas ISPs act as a transit or transport medium into CPs customers. In the US, the quarterly profit margin of AT&T (an ISP) has been almost stable over the last six years whereas Netflix (a CP) profit margin has risen up in rapid pace from 0.7% to 9.8% within the same period [2], [3]. In contrast, advocates warn that removing net neutrality will slow down the innovation in the Internet and its content and will limit the content competition by disadvantaging small businesses, and subsequently, diminish online services. Deploying traffic discrimination in video delivery services has many challenges, e.g. detecting video packets and enforcing a policy on a certain video quality. Traffic discrimination in IP communication networks has been surveyed intensively in the literature. Several traffic management practices have been surveyed in [4]. The authors highlighted that traffic discrimination taxonomy has four features: (i) characteristics or condition of the traffic (e.g. based on content, protocol or source/destination); (ii) traffic classification (e.g. based on flow rate, header information or routing); (iii) mechanism of discrimination (e.g. modify, delay, drop or block); and (iv) perceived discrimination by end-users. Video traffic can be analyzed using two mechanisms; deep packet inspection (DPI) [5], [6] or traffic profiling [7], [8]. DPI examines the data packets that are sent over the network and traffic profiling detects abnormal network traffic by comparing new traffic against previous traffic profile. For example, an alarm can be triggered if the data rate transmitted over the network (measured in bps) spikes above the desired data rate, which could indicate an increase in data rate. QoS for video services delivery can be applied either by reserving network bandwidth for video packets (e.g. using IntServ) or labelling video content as high priority e.g. by applying Differentiated Services (e.g. using DiffServ) [9]. The Internet ecosystem is complex with many stakeholders. As illustrated in Fig. 1, the main stakeholders in the Internet ecosystem are; ISPs, CPs, content delivery networks (CDNs) and end-users. Users pay ISPs a subscription fee to get Internet access and subscribe to CPs (if required) to access their content. CPs subscribe to a CDN to access storage and processing capacity and to deliver their content to customers. CDNs are responsible for sending CPs content at large scale over ISPs network infrastructure, e.g. the CP Netflix collaborates with the CDN Amazon Web Services (AWS) to reach their customers [10]. ISPs play as the key intermediary in the delivery process as they provide the required connectivity between users and content. Most ISPs such as AT&T [11] and Comcast [12] are now providing CDN services in additional to networking services. To simplify our analysis, we consider a direct relationship between ISP and CPs. Due to net neutrality regulations, current pricing policy of ISP networking services applies a fixed charge which is not linked with bitrate usage. For example, in the US, AT&T uses a fixed pricing model by charging CPs $3,282 per 10 Gbps per month [13] regardless of the content type transferred to users (either UHD video content or a simple text message). The rest of this paper is organized as follows: Section II briefly summarizes related work. We describe the pricing scheme we used in this paper and the profit-driven model we adopted in Section III. Our results are presented in Section IV. In Section V, we provide concluding remarks.

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