Abstract
From an economic perspective, the core of the network neutrality issue is twofold: the negative externality of traffic congestion and the anticompetitive conduct of the dominant player. Economic theory has already provided a set of policy options to deal with such issues. However, in the real world, prevailing business practices in the current Internet ecosystem significantly impede such theoretically correct solutions. In this paper, the author focuses on the quality of service (QoS) of the Fixed Internet and consumers' perceptions of it, and proposes that insufficient QoS consciousness will hinder efficiency in the retail broadband market, thereby hampering the resolution of network neutrality problems. The empirical findings based on the responses to a Web-based questionnaire survey reveal that improving users' QoS consciousness would enable the market mechanism to solve the network neutrality problems. In addition, the analyses identified several factors that contribute to the improvement of QoS consciousness among Internet users in Japan.
