SBIR Phase I: Empowering Broadband ISPs to Generate New Profit Streams via Differentiated Web Content

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project proposes to investigate the feasibility of enabling technologies that will allow a Broadband Internet Service Provider (BISP) to create new revenue streams. The proposed activity involves advances in the areas of network protocols and middleware, and context-based applications. The first area is a well-established area; however the proposed activity looks to conduct research in a relatively new field within it, namely adding value-added intelligence to the edge of the network. The second area has received significant attention in the mobile networks literature. The goal of the proposed research is to demonstrate the feasibility of a network software solution that will empower the Broadband ISP to provide web-portal services to its subscribers, whereby those web-portal services are differentiated by being geography-specific, in a way that is transparent to the subscriber. Moreover, the network software solution will facilitate the ability of the subscriber to access the ISP's web-portal. This is done by allocating an area dedicated to the Broadband ISP within the subscriber's web-browser without the area being intrusive. The proposed technology, if successful, is a component of a larger product being developed for the Broadband Internet Service Provider (BISP) market. The goal of the product is to create new revenue streams for BISPs. In doing so, it will increase the profitability per BISP customer, which will make the business case for deploying Broadband in currently underserved area (e.g., poor urban neighborhoods and rural America) more appealing, which in turn will increase the penetration of Broadband in such areas. Broadband Internet access is increasingly considered as essential as traditional utility services; and among its social benefits are online education/distance learning and telemedicine.