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Business & Information Systems Engineering
Published in: Business & Information Systems Engineering 5/2015

01-10-2015 | Research Paper

When ‘Just’ is Just Not Enough

Why Consumers Do Not Appreciate Non-Neutral Internet Access Services

Authors: Prof. Dr. Jan Krämer, Prof. Dr. Lukas Wiewiorra

Published in: Business & Information Systems Engineering | Issue 5/2015

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Abstract

Although Internet service providers (ISPs) are technically capable as well as legally allowed to offer non-neutral Internet access services, where the data flows of customers who pay a premium are prioritized over others, such an access service is currently not offered by ISPs. We argue that ISPs are hesitant to tap the price discrimination potential of prioritized Internet access services, because in the context of the ongoing public debate on net neutrality (NN), their customers would consider such differentiation unjust. In a representative survey among German Internet access customers, we find that the customers’ perceptions of justice as well as the framing of the mechanism by which prioritized Internet access is provided are indeed decisive for whether customers would prefer this access regime over NN. In particular, we find that perceptions of distributive and procedural justice influence customers’ choice for non-neutral Internet access. Moreover, customers are more likely to accept a regime that offers an absolute rather than a relative prioritization of data flows.
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Appendix
Available only for authorised users
Footnotes
1
On February 26, 2015, the United States regulatory body ruled in favor of net neutrality by reclassifying broadband access as a telecommunications service. However, the new regulatory regime is concerned with the relationship between Internet service providers and content providers (B2B) and therefore makes it even more likely that ISPs now shift their focus on non-neutral Internet access to consumers (B2C).
 
2
Note that non-neutral Internet access is not to be confused with the data rate of an Internet access. The data rate [measured in megabit per second (Mbps)] states the maximum rate at which data packets can be sent through the network without congestion. When the network is congested, however, delays occur independent of the data rate.
 
3
Nevertheless, in order to control for a potential halo-effect of current satisfaction with the ISP or the lack thereof, we incorporated control measures in our survey (see Sect. 2.3).
 
4
Details of the elicitation of these controls are provided in Sect. 3.2.
 
5
Since we cannot assume that the different dimensions of justice are orthogonal to each other, Hendrickson and White (1964) suggest choosing the promax oblique rotation method, which then leads to more accurate results.
 
6
Parallel analysis is widely accepted to be one of the most accurate factor extraction methods (Hayton et al. 2004). In particular, it outperforms the Guttmann-Kaiser eigenvalue greater than one rule (Glorfeld 1995).
 
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Metadata
Title
When ‘Just’ is Just Not Enough
Why Consumers Do Not Appreciate Non-Neutral Internet Access Services
Authors
Prof. Dr. Jan Krämer
Prof. Dr. Lukas Wiewiorra
Publication date
01-10-2015
Publisher
Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden
Published in
Business & Information Systems Engineering / Issue 5/2015
Print ISSN: 2363-7005
Electronic ISSN: 1867-0202
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-015-0398-9

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