Date of Award

2015

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Graduate Group

Electrical & Systems Engineering

First Advisor

Roch Guerin

Abstract

Today, more than any time in history, our life-styles depend on networked systems,

ranging from power grids to the Internet and social networks. From shopping

online to attending a conference via P2P technologies, the Internet is changing the

way we perform certain tasks, which incentivizes more users to join the network.

This user population growth as well as higher demand for a better access to the

Internet call for its expansion and development, and therefore, fuel the emergence of

new Internet technologies. However, many such technologies fail to get adopted by

their target user population due to various technical or socio-economical problems.

Understanding these (adoption) problems and the factors that play a significant role

in them, not only gives researchers a better insight into the dynamics of Internet

technology adoption, but also provides them with enhanced guidelines for designing

new Internet technologies. The primary motivation of this thesis is, therefore, to

provide researchers and network technology developers with an insight into what

factors are responsible for, or at least correlated with, the success or failure of an

Internet technology. We start by delving deeply into (arguably) the salient adoption problem the Internet has faced in its 40+ years of existence, and continues to face

for at least a foreseeable future, namely, IPv6 adoption. The study is composed of

an extensive measurement component, in addition to models that capture the roles

of different Internet stakeholders in the adoption of IPv6. Then, we extend it to a

broad set of Internet protocols, and investigate the factors that affect their adoptions.

The findings show performance as the primary factor that not only affected

the adoption of IPv6, but also plays a role in the adoption of any other network data

plane protocol. Moreover, they show how backward compatibility as well as other

factors can affect the adoption of various protocols. The study provides a number

of models and methodologies that can be extended to other similar problems in

various research areas, such as network technology adoption and design, two-sided

markets, and network economics.

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