An Interim Economic Solution to Internet Congestion

The current Internet pricing structure and practice of taking traffic on a first-come, first-served basis encourages overuse of the Internet. Users ignore the delay costs they impose on others during periods of congestion, which are increasingly a problem due to the popularity of high-intensity applications such as audio and image. This article describes a system that prioritizes traffic on the Internet and raises revenue for expansion by allowing users to pay to overcome the effects of congestion.