Long abstract

About Statistics Publications & Documents Information by Country

Competition is increasing in Internet backbone markets, as a result of liberalisation, and the consequent ability of telecommunication carriers to provide infrastructure and services on an end-to-end basis. All major telecommunication carriers wanting to serve regional and global markets have put together their own networks in those areas. This has increased competitiveness for transit services. As a result, the price of transit services has decreased and the structure of such pricing has become more flexible for ISPs.

Operators have also been able reduce transit costs by more extensive use of peering. The increasing use of peering is supported by evidence that indicates that the Internet is becoming less hierarchical. As a result there have been sharp decreases in the cost of Internet access for consumers and business users and, importantly, new pricing structures more favourable to Internet development.