2014 21st International Conference on Telecommunications (ICT)

A Comparison of ISP and MNO Interconnection

Models
Grkem akmak, Henna Suomi
Department of Communications and Networking
Aalto University
Espoo, Finland
{gorkem.cakmak, henna.suomi}@aalto.fi
fashion with entirely controlled value chains. Furthermore,
technical concepts such as roaming, interworking and
signalling functions employed by MNOs complicate the simple
notion of interconnectivity in telecommunication networks.

Abstract Network operators being it fixed or mobile are in

continuous need to keep up with a variety of customer
requirements while seeking efficient ways to interconnect with
other networks. This issue raises several, not only technical
challenges that are addressed differently depending on the legacy
of operators. This paper conducts a holistic comparison of two
interconnection models used for global Internet Protocol (IP)
service delivery: Internet Service Provider (ISP) interconnections
in an unmanaged, public model and Mobile Network Operator
(MNO) interconnections in a managed, closed model. To lay out
technical and business interfaces of these models, Value Network
Configurations (VNCs) are utilized and the key characteristics of
each model are analysed from technical, economic and regulatory
perspectives. The comparison shows that these two models do not
employ broadly divergent approaches to accomplish a global
reach, as one could assume. However, fundamental differences
and how these features induce each model to evolve in their own
trajectories cannot be omitted either. By comparing the existing
models that represent two different worlds, the current
drawbacks can be addressed, and thus future implications of
emerging models, such as IP eXchange (IPX), can be rationally
anticipated.

However, the widespread adoption of Internet Protocol (IP)

based core networks constitutes a practical change in
telecommunications. Interconnections between international
carrier networks have already migrated to IP based
interconnections from Time-Division Multiplexing (TDM) to
reduce the cost of maintaining legacy systems and provide
efficient connectivity [1]. MNOs are also implementing all-IP
infrastructures such as Long Term Evolution (LTE), to address
the increasing demand for mobile content despite the
limitations of the spectrum.
In this transition, MNOs are playing a trailblazer role for
two main reasons. Firstly, worldwide number of subscribers in
mobile networks is increasing, driven by the demand in
developing markets as well as in developed countries.
Secondly, the rapid uptake of smartphones and the massive
roll-out of 3G and 4G networks have resulted in a myriad of
new mobile services. Thus, the usage volume per mobile end
user is constantly rising. Cisco [2] forecasts a stunning growth;
mobile data traffic will reportedly increase 13-fold between
2012 and 2017 while global IP traffic will increase threefold
over the next 5 years. However, the fraction of mobile data
traffic in global IP traffic still remains relatively small; the
global mobile data traffic was 2 percent of total IP traffic in
2012 [2].

Keywords- IP Interconnection; Internet Service Provider;

Mobile Network Operator

I.

INTRODUCTION

Repeating patterns and historical analogies in

communications systems have showed that the endeavour of
extending the reach of networks via interconnections has been
the founding ethos of all point-to-point communications.
Meanwhile, end users enjoy seamlessly global and ubiquitous
communication mediums, naturally with no or little interest in
the happenings on the backstage. Behind the scenes of these
mediums (e.g., the Internet, mobile and fixed telephone
networks) underlie many separate networks operated by
various entities and coupled through interconnection
agreements.

Nonetheless, the growing number of mobile internet users

and even increasing usage volumes per mobile user do not
automatically guarantee additional revenues for operators. Both
MNOs and ISPs are challenged to develop sustainable business
models that allow them to reap the benefit of their investments
in interconnections while striving to provide their existing and
nascent services to end users. Despite MNOs increasing
significance in the global service delivery, relatively limited
academic attention has been drawn on the inter-operator MNO
interconnections compared to the Internet interconnections.
This paper aims to fill this gap by scrutinizing IP
interconnections between MNOs, which have evolved in a
closed, walled-garden model, and by comparing this model
with more frequently studied public Internet interconnection
model between ISPs from technical, economic and regulatory
perspectives. In addition, an emerging interconnection model
that is envisaged to facilitate end-to-end quality-assured service

Interconnection is a unique discipline of communications

where technical, economic and regulatory concerns meet, and
time to time clash. Several approaches exist for handling these
matters in different interconnectivity ecosystems. In the
Internet, for example, interconnection is a compact concept,
which enables Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to exploit open
architectures and non-regulated wholesale arrangements.
Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), on the other hand, are
subject to firm regulations and deliver services in a closed

978-1-4799-5141-3/14/$31.00 2014 IEEE

431

2014 21st International Conference on Telecommunications (ICT)

delivery and reconciliation between participants from different

backgrounds is discussed. We believe that this paper will
increase the understanding on the dualistic role of MNOs in
global IP interconnection ecosystem and will help anticipate
the possible benefits and hurdles that the evolution of global IP
services delivery may entail.
II.

Figure 1. The notation of VNC

A. Technical domain
Each and every aspect of the Internet ecosystem, which is a
collection of the ASes and policies of their administrative
organizations, is affected by the de facto standard inter-domain
routing protocol, Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). Since the
commercialization of the Internet, BGP has played a key role
of allowing networks to exchange routing information without
revealing strategic internal glimpse of their networks.
However, despite the pre-emptive filtering mechanisms, the
open nature of the Internet has resulted in several incidents of
malicious or inadvertent misuse of BGP routing information in
recent years [6].

METHODOLOGY

The Internet and telecommunications world, from which

MNOs have inherited interconnection customs, have
incorporated markedly different methods. This section sets the
scene for how interconnections for ISP and MNO ecosystems
can be studied.
Many open data sources are available for studying Internet
interconnectivity. The Internet routing and topology studies
have been harnessing monitored routing tables and trace-route
derived data to conduct inter-domain level constructs of the
Internet along with finer granularities such as point of
presence level and prefix level topologies. However, those
efforts have their own challenges and deficiencies, which have
been widely debated in the literature [3].

Forming an essential part of the Internet infrastructure,

Internet eXchange Points (IXPs) are third party maintained
physical infrastructures that enable exchange of IP traffic at
national or international levels between ISPs. Vital components
of the Internet, such as Domain Name Service (DNS) servers
providing look-up mechanisms and local content caching
mechanisms to reach end users with minimal delay, are also
established in those exchange locations [7].

Telecom industry, on the other hand, is a closed world, and

only a small number of studies on the MNO interconnections
exist in the literature. In the absence of open data, reports and
surveys from industry researchers and regulators are useful.
Interviews with industry experts also provide a genuine way to
understand the real market dynamics and concerns especially
for grasping an insight on MNO interconnections.

During the early days of the Internet, the pattern of

interconnections represented a rigorously hierarchical construct
including global backbone operators at the core, smaller
regional tier-2 and local tier-3 ISPs interconnecting at the
edges. During the past several years, economic incentives of
large content providers have altered the technical means and
strategies used for interconnections [8]. With the proliferating
number of paths to reach each destination, and the rising
importance of content and location, the Internet structure has
become flatter and more intricate to assay.

All above-mentioned methods for both ISP and MNO

models have been used to carry out a holistic interconnection
ecosystem analysis in Finland. The detailed results of this study
can be found in [4]. The global Internet routing tables are
analysed, and interviews with industry experts from ten
telecommunications companies and from the Finnish
regulatory authority were conducted.
Based on the analysed data and industry insights, we lay
out three Value Network Configurations (VNCs) describing
present and future interconnection models. VNC methodology
by Casey et al. [5] groups activities and technical components
into roles and assigns these roles to different market actors. The
configuration model itself maps the technical architecture and
business relations to each other and, therefore, provides an
illustrative way of modelling complex techno-economic
systems. The notation of VNC is depicted in Fig. 1. Although
the data collection and analysis are based on Finnish data, the
VNC models and their comparison are applicable for other
markets as well.
III.

B. Economic domain
Business relationships between ASes can be fairly finegrained, however, these arrangements mainly present a
bifurcated model: either transit or peering. Internet transit is a
traditional customer-supplier arrangement. The customer ISP
pays the upstream provider ISP (typically volume-based
charges) for transiting traffic from and to the rest of the global
Internet. Today, ISPs buy transit service from multiple
providers to assure network resiliency and performance as
much as competitive pricing. Transit prices have been
declining each year but the growth per year in volumes has
compensated the decrease in favour of transit providers [9].

ISP INTERCONNECTION MODEL

The Internet, where various commercial and noncommercial participants strive through their networking
objectives, is comprised of heterogeneous entities called
Autonomous Systems (AS). The administrative organizations
of ASes vary from giant global content providers (e.g., Google,
Microsoft and Amazon) to small stub network owners (e.g.,
single-homed enterprise or personal networks). Therefore, the
nature of ISP interconnection agreements and the motivations
of each participant are distinctive from each other.

With a peering agreement, two ISPs agree to exchange

traffic solely among their respective customers without
settlement or payment. Therefore, it is called settlement-free
peering. In Fig. 2, transit providers A and B are peering, thus
reciprocally exchanging Internet traffic without any monetary
transfer. Only a dozen ISPs (tier-1s) are able to reach every
destination in the Internet by only peering without the need to
buy transit from any other ISP.

432

2014 21st International Conference on Telecommunications (ICT)

Charges at the wholesale level typically reflect the capacity

provided or the volume of transmitted traffic both of which
are directly related to ISPs costs. The Internet philosophy of a
dumb transport network and an intelligent periphery makes it
viable for parties other than network operators to offer new
services [10]. As a result, separate service-based wholesale
payments between ISPs for services that ride on top of their
respective networks and a linkage between wholesale and retail
pricing do not exist. Consequently, Quality of Service (QoS)
unaware, best-effort Internet based on flat rate bandwidth
provisioning has become the todays reality, which strongly
endangers the profitability of generic ISP business models
[11].
As depicted in Fig. 2, an Over-The-Top (OTT) service
provider (e.g., Google, Facebook and Skype) is able to bypass
ISPs and MNOs in the value network and directly engage in
business relationship with end users. Here on, all third party
application, service and content providers are referred to
collectively as OTT players to avoid confusion. Business
interfaces are vertically established, and network operators
providing access to end users usually do not obtain business
interface with other intermediary actors or service providers.
This distinctive feature has been reflecting on the disputes
covered in the next domain.

Figure 2. VNC for ISP Interconnection model

interconnections that include only MNOs in the GPRS

Roaming eXchange (GRX) model, merits of which are under
consideration by the GSM Association (GSMA).
A. Technical domain
With the advent of 2.5G technology, GSM operators have
been using the GRX networks to route IP-based roaming and
interworking traffic between visited and home operators. In
particular, GRX is used to support traffic applications including
GPRS, 3G data and LTE data roaming, and interworking of
messaging services. Based on the industry specifications and
recommendations [14], MNOs are interconnected with
dedicated IP connectivity (leased line circuits), or logically
separated connections from the public Internet while aiming to
establish a mobile Internet. Although there are some Service
Level Agreements (SLAs) associated with GRX, there is
limited QoS, only providing a best effort traffic class which
is unaware to the type of the service delivered.

C. Regulatory domain
Due to its open nature and its capability to maintain
competition, the Internet has so far remained largely
unregulated. Thus, the Internet market has evolved and
expanded tremendously throughout the last decades while
incorporating more than 40,000 ASes. However, with this
extraordinary success and socio-economic value, the Internet
has been gradually endeavoured to be subject to stricter
regulations [7].
Over the role of interconnection settlements, public
disputes have surfaced as a result of imbalanced traffic ratios.
Especially, the disputes between OTTs and eyeball-heavy ISPs
have made it clear that settlement-free peering could no longer
be sustained in such cases when one peer starts to double its
traffic sent to the other peer, and thus, creates asymmetrical
partaking in costs [12]. Emerging models, such as partial transit
and paid peering, represent a remedy to cater for a greater
diversity of needs without regulatory intervention.

The key feature of GRX is its ability to employ a hub

architecture which can enable establishing only one connection
to reach multiple MNOs. Thus, the model reduces the need to
establish dedicated links between each and every operator to
support mobile data roaming and interworking. GRX providers
have roughly the same role for MNOs as transit providers have
for ISPs in the Internet. The number of GRX providers
operating between two MNOs is limited to one or two in order
to minimize latency. The technical aspects in the GRX
networks are excessively similar to the public networks such
as common routing protocols, same AS numbering, IP
addressing and look-up mechanisms, and even very same
physical exchange points for GRX networks such as
Amsterdam AMS-IX and Ashburn Equinix and Singapore
Equinix [14].

The debate of content market also continues in the form of

network neutrality discussions and lawsuits. National
regulatory bodies are concerned that ISPs and MNOs might
engage in discriminatory practices that limit end users access
to applications or content of their choice. Disentangling how
ISPs and MNOs treat their Internet interconnections, in
particular with OTTs , is a challenging task for regulators to
maintain the openness essence of the Internet [13].
IV.

MNO INTERCONNECTION MODEL

The existing MNO interconnection architecture is a mixture

of direct interconnections between two MNOs typically used
domestically or within a particular region and indirect
interconnections that use an intermediate global carrier network
to reach the rest of the world for roaming and interworking
within a hub architecture. In this section, we elaborate the

B. Economic domain
In traditional telephony, mainly two wholesale charging
arrangements can be seen in practice: Calling Party's Network
Pays (CPNP) and Bill and Keep (BAK). Predominantly,
telephony service providers adhere to CPNP wholesale

433

2014 21st International Conference on Telecommunications (ICT)

payment arrangements, where the network of the party that

originates a call pays per minute based termination fee to the
network of the receiving party [10]. CPNP is also the base
payment method in GRX for business interfaces between
MNOs, horizontally shown in Fig. 3. However, charging
between GRX providers and MNOs are volume or capacity
based monthly payments, similar to the Internet transit. Under
some limited conditions where the distribution of costs align
with the distribution of benefits MNOs freely negotiate on
termination fees to be based on the same per-minute fees. They
often choose to set these fees to zero to avoid transaction costs
(e.g. measurement, billing), and therefore it is called Bill and
Keep. As shown in Fig. 3, exchange of IP traffic is established
between GRX providers with no interconnections charges,
which is identical to the model of free peering contracts in the
Internet.
MNOs have a common objective to deliver traffic to each
other in profitable and cost efficient ways for maximum
ubiquity through interworking and roaming. Some studies are
questioning whether managed models such as GRX is the best
way to accomplish this objective by pursuing the economic
feasibility of using the public Internet as the global roaming
backbone. In [15], the author discusses the case in which
Internet-based offerings hold a majority share of data roaming
traffic. Unmanaged interconnections remove the need for rerouting of roaming traffic through home operators network,
thus decreasing technical complexity and achieving cost
savings.

Figure 3. VNC for the GRX model

Communications (BEREC) has imposed radical price caps to

accommodate healthier pricing schemes to encourage intuitive
mobile data usage for end users even when roaming [16].
Hence, a smoother transition to all IP environment, which
enables MNOs to launch operator-based multimedia services to
cope with the competition from OTT players, can be facilitated
[10].
Table I summarizes the attributes of two models under
technical, economic and regulatory domains, and compares the
relevant aspects of each according to their degree of similarity.
Blue rows represent the similarity on a certain issue, whereas
red rows indicate dissimilarities. Color codes of these
characteristics do not express the quality of being either
advantageous or disadvantageous. Divergence in regulatory
approaches should alarm that the inevitable clash of the
Internet and mobile telecommunications ecosystems has to be
broadly argued, in favour of allowing the full-scale IP
migration to yield positive outcomes, not only from business
and technology aspects but most importantly from regulatory
aspects to assure development of emerging models without
undue interference.

C. Regulatory domain
MNO interconnections have always been subject to strong
regulations. Market has evolved in an oligopolistic manner and,
interconnecting in managed and closed walled garden models
with strong vertical orientation have become a natural outcome
of the mobile industry. The gradual demise of circuit-switched
voice traffic and the prominent raise of mobile content are
posing delicate challenges for regulatory authorities.
The current consensus emerged among policymakers
indicates that the abnormality in the termination fees that
reflect on customer usage have to be amended. In the same
vein, the Body of European Regulators of Electronic
TABLE I.

COMPARISON TABLE (

NDICATES SIMILARITIES,

ISP Interconnections
T
E
C
H

E
C
O

R
E
G

INDICATES DISSIMILARITIES)

MNO Interconnections

Open, publicly accessible networks; vulnerable to the malicious attempts

Private IP networks; logically or physically separated from public networks

Technical requirements: BGP, IPv4/v6, DNS

Technical requirements: BGP, IPv4/v6, DNS

Unlimited number of interconnections; vaguely tiered structure

Limited number of end-to-end interconnections; strictly tiered structure

The best effort inter-domain interconnections

The best effort inter-domain interconnections with some level of SLA

Ever-decreasing interconnection (transit) prices and low profitability

TDM to IP migration for cost efficiency and potentially higher profitability

Transit and peering, and alternatively partial transit and paid peering

CPNP and BAK

No linkage between wholesale and retail and capacity based pricing

Linkage between wholesale and retail and service based pricing

Side-lined by OTT players in the value network

Usage volumes of operator-based services (e.g., voice and SMS) dropping

Deregulated success story; creates its own remedy, e.g., paid peering

Highly regulated on both wholesale and retail levels; regulatory price caps

Network neutrality debates raging; altering perception of openness

Private networks with transit only function; net neutrality debates not in sight

Varying participants; disputes between OTTs and access ISPs

Limited to mobile operators; disputes opposed to regulatory restrictions

National regulatory bodies set the playground for ISPs and Internet content

Global industry groups set the landscape for interconnections

434

2014 21st International Conference on Telecommunications (ICT)

V.

AN EMERGING MODEL BETWEEN ISP AND MNO

INTERCONNECTIONS: IPX

The increasing demand in quality for end-to-end

applications that are less delay tolerant and conversational in
nature (e.g., voice and video calling) has shaped a prospect for
a novel interconnection platform that adds QoS and service
aware capabilities. To cater these needs, GSMA has developed
the IP eXchange (IPX) built upon the architecture of the GRX
while introducing a set of new stakeholders such as, fixed
network operators, ISPs, application service providers and
content providers [14]. The industrial momentum among
telecom consortiums for QoS guarantee over inter-operator
interconnections has already built around the IPX model to
avoid divergence [17].
As QoS is the cornerstone of the IPX specifications, an IPX
platform must only use private IP networks as in GRX. Even
though networks are logically isolated from the networks
accessible from the Internet, addressing is handled by using
public IP addresses [14]. IPX represents a billing model as
much as a technical model. It enables cascade billing; a chain
of payments established from application through each IPX
hub to end user. This feature allows the model to become more
than solely an enhanced roaming pipeline. As shown in Fig. 4,
service providers with varying backgrounds could participate
in IPX, and business interfaces enable equitable payments
(both vertically and horizontally) between all stakeholders that
participate in the value network while ensuring the QoS
differentiated service delivery.

Figure 4. VNC for the IPX model

Third party OTT providers can be also prevented from IPX

platform unless they agree pricing and quality arrangements of
operators. Nevertheless, this ordeal (blocking or allowing
access) is not as black and white. Those services offered by
OTT players are, in most cases, not conspicuously eroding
MNOs business but are often contributing on mobile usage. In
addition to that, it might eventually become a futile endeavor to
form a single service platform that offers superior flexibility to
both operators and end users as pointed out in [22]. Openness
and compatibility between platforms, even with hybrid
solutions where MNOs could partner up with third party
players instead of solely relying on operator-based services
can influence the level of received benefit and further enable
two- or even three-sided business models, therefore maximize
the functionality and efficiency of the emerging IP
interconnection models.

As the traditional CPNP model constitutes the core

charging framework in IPX, the GSMA recommendations [18]
suggest that IPX participants will be also able to opt from a
variety of charging principles (such as session based, data
volume based, event based) typically varying on a per service
basis. Even though CPNP model is one step ahead in terms of
efficiency, [19] shows that there is no one-size-fits-all approach
in charging models to maximize economic efficiency in all
circumstances with IP interconnections.

At this stage, the complexity of technical elements and lack

of clear pricing schemes hinder the worldwide adoption of IPX
a detailed study on technical challenges of the IPX model can
be found in [23]. Critical mass has not been reached for IPX
and most of participating MNOs are still waiting for
consolidation and more clarity [20]. Level of end user
willingness to pay more to assure an enhanced experience,
explicit QoS, as explained in [24], and prospective coherent
charging regimes that can correlate efficient retail pricing of
end user services with wholesale charges will play a critical
role to define the future of OTT players as well as of operatorbased services in the IPX ecosystem.

As covered in Section III, network operators find

themselves increasingly side-lined by third party OTT service
providers which use operator infrastructures over the public
Internet. To counter the threat of becoming transmission pipes
that do not capture any value of transactions made through
their infrastructures, MNOs are taking collaborative action to
develop Rich Communications Services (RCS) platform a set
of multimedia end user services such as presence, instant
messaging and video sharing.
The aim of RCS is to leverage the guaranteed end-to-end
quality with IPX and unique operator proposition of mobile
universality. By entitling operators to play the role of service
providers as well as platform providers, RCS, LTE Roaming
and Voice over LTE (VoLTE) are considered to be the driving
forces in MNOs plan to migrate their traffic through IPX, as
indicated in a recent operator survey with 170 respondents
[20]. Marketed by the GSMA under the brand name joyn, RCS
is already a commercial reality [21]. However, despite
promising deployments and trials, MNOs have been slow and
reluctant to adopt RCS services [20].

VI.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

This paper has modelled and compared two global IP

interconnection models: an open ISP model and a closed MNO
model. Additionally, an emerging interconnection model, IPX,
which to some extent already exists has been elaborated. The
comparison shows that these two models incorporate, to a
certain degree, similar technical and economic means while
employing entirely divergent regulatory instruments to
establish a global reach. In this sense, rethinking of the
interconnections to introduce operators to the benefits of an

435

2014 21st International Conference on Telecommunications (ICT)

all IP era is not a challenging task due to technical nor

economic peculiarities. The comparison should be interesting
to academics who desire to comprehend IP interconnection
ecosystems on a pragmatic level as well as for practitioners and
regulatory authorities who desire to design new pricing models
and policies for future interconnections.

[6] K. Butler, T.R. Farley, P. McDaniel, and J. Rexford, "A survey of BGP
security issues and solutions," Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 98, no. 1,
pp. 100-122, January 2010.
[7] D. Weller and B. Woodcock, "Internet Traffic Exchange: Market
Developments and Policy Challenges," 2012.
[8] C. Labovitz, S. Iekel-Johnson, D. McPherson, J. Oberheide, and F.
Jahanian, "Internet inter-domain traffic," ACM SIGCOMM Computer
Communication Review, vol. 40, no. 4, pp. 7586, 2010.

The crux of the evolution towards future networking lies in

reconciling between MNO and ISP models. Two models have
certain deficiencies to integrate third party service providers.
IPX, here, has a potential to sit in between and fill the gap. The
model is expected to provide real-time IP sessions to deliver
high quality end user services while allowing MNOs and ISPs
to maintain their privileged positions in the value network,
which is possible to be achieved neither over the Internet nor
existing MNO models.

[9] W. B. Norton, The Internet Peering Playbook: Connecting to the Core of

the Internet.: DrPeering Press, 2011.
[10] M. Scott, D. Elixmann, and K. Carter, "The Future of IP interconnection:
technical, economic, and public policy aspects," January 2008.
[11] Joe Peppard and Anna Rylander, "From value chain to value network:
insights for mobile operators," European Management Journal, vol. 24,
no. 2, pp. 128-141, 2006.
[12] K.C. Claffy, "Workshop on internet economics (WIE2011) Report,"
ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review, vol. 42, no. 2, pp.
110-114, April 2012.

However, this emerging model might be the first indicator

of the embodiment for a foundational separation of the Internet,
in terms of QoS, argued in [25]. More of a philosophical
debate, rather than pragmatic, arises; whether having two
separate worlds of interconnection for global IP services
delivery is the appropriate and efficient way to substantially
enhance the social welfare. Future studies are needed to
support the legislation towards welfare maximizing policies. In
this sense, the main research focus should be on the practical
scenarios of IP service delivery in future interconnection
models such as studies on expected and perceived service
experiences in the context of end-to-end quality and how they
might differentiate within different interconnection practices.

[13] D. Clark, W. Lehr, and S. Bauer, "Interconnection in the Internet: the

policy challenge," in TPRC, 2011.
[14] GSMA, "Inter-Service Provider IP Backbone Guidelines IR.34 Version
9.1," 2013.
[15] Renjish Kumar, "International mobile data roaming: Managed or
unmanaged?," in the 9th Conference on Telecommunications Internet
and Media Techno Economics (CTTE), 2010.
[16] BEREC, "International Mobile Roaming Regulation," December 2010.
[17] Multi Service Forum (MSF), "Whitepaper on QoS over the NNI ," MSF
Technical Report-QoS-006-FINAL, 2010.
[18] GSMA, "IPX White Paper Version 1.2," 2007.
[19] M. Dodd, A. Jung, B. Mitchell, P. Paterson, and P. Reynolds, "Bill-andkeep and the economics of interconnection in next-generation networks,"
Telecommunications Policy, vol. 33, no. 5-6, pp. 324-337, 2009.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

[20] M. Carroll and J. C. Tanner, "Navigating complexity: the quest for true
IPX," Telecom Asia, June 2013.

This study is supported by MoMIE project funded by the

Finnish funding agency TEKES.

[21] GSMA, RCS Facts, 2013

http://www.gsma.com/network2020/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/RCSFacts-OCTOBER-2013.pdf

REFERENCES
[1] J. Baldwin, J. Ewert, and S. Yamen, "Evolution of the voice
interconnect," Ericsson Review 2, pp. 10-15, 2010.

[22] M. Reuver, H. Bouwman, G. Prieto, and A. Visser, "Governance of

flexible mobile service platforms," Futures, vol. 43, no. 9, pp. 979-985,
November 2011.

[2] Cisco, "Visual Networking Index: Forecast and Methodology, 2012

2017," May 2013.

[23] M. Takaaki, "Survey of IPX (IP eXchange) as an emerging international

interconnection between telecommunication networks," IEICE
transactions on Communications, vol. 96, no. 4, pp. 927-938, 2013.

[3] M. Roughan et al, "10 lessons from 10 years of measuring and modeling
the Internets autonomous systems," IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in
Communications, vol. 29, no. 10, pp. 1810-1821, 2011.

[24] Meddeb Aref, "Internet QoS: pieces of the puzzle,"

Communications Magazine, vol. 48, no. 1, pp. 86-94, 2010.

[4] G. Cakmak, Internet Interconnection Ecosystem in Finland. MSc Thesis,

Aalto University, 2013.

IEEE

[25] D. Clark, J. Wroclawski, K. R. Sollins, and R. Braden, "Tussle in

cyberspace: defining tomorrow's Internet," IEEE/ACM Transactions on
Networking, vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 462-475, June 2005.

[5] T. Casey, T. Smura, and A. Sorri, "Value network configurations in

wireless local area access," in the 9th Conference on
Telecommunications Internet and Media Techno Economics (CTTE),
2010.

436