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Time-Dependent Pricing of Mobile Data

Time-Dependent Pricing of Mobile Data. Soumya Sen Princeton University Joint work with : Sangtae Ha, Carlee -Joe Wong, Mung Chiang . May 4, 2012 Bell Labs, Crawford Hill. I. Motivation. Wireless Internet Usage Trends. Mobile data growing at 78% annually. Driving Forces. Mobile

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Time-Dependent Pricing of Mobile Data

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  1. Time-Dependent Pricing of Mobile Data • Soumya Sen • Princeton University • Joint work with: • Sangtae Ha, Carlee-Joe Wong, MungChiang May 4, 2012 Bell Labs, Crawford Hill

  2. I. Motivation

  3. Wireless Internet Usage Trends Mobile data growing at 78% annually

  4. Driving Forces Mobile Video Cloud Sync Data-hungry Apps High-res Devices A Perfect Storm

  5. Ultra-Heavy Tail ISP cost structure’s fundamental problem

  6. But Not Heavy All the Time Large Peak-Valley Differential

  7. Time Elasticity: Opportunities Movies & Multimedia downloads, P2P Streaming videos, Gaming Software Downloads Opportunities Cloud Texting, Weather, Finance Email, Social Network updates

  8. Cost Reduction ISP’s Spectrum, Capital, Operational costs decrease with reduced peak Before After Peak Peak Bandwidth Bandwidth Time Time

  9. Revenue Increase $50 for 5 GB $60 for 10 GB Create win-win by increasing demand Before After Bandwidth Bandwidth Time Time

  10. II. Feasibility Study

  11. Consumer Response USA: Online Survey, 130 participants, 25 states India: Face-to-face Surveys: 550 participants, 5 cities Professionals (36%), Students (36%), Self-employed (8%), housewives (6%), unemployed (12%)

  12. Time Elasticity: Survey Results YouTube streaming Downloads Many applications are time-elastic

  13. Policy Feasibility FCC Dec. 2010 Statement “...the importance of business innovation to promote network investment and efficient use of networks, including measures to match price to cost, such as usage-based pricing”

  14. Industry Moves: US ISPs

  15. Industry Moves: Indian ISPs

  16. Industry Moves: African ISPs Africa dynamic pricing

  17. Current Practices • Flat Rate, throttling heavy-users • Usage-based Pricing • David Clark, ’95: “The fundamental problem with simple usage fees is that they impose usage costs on users regardless of whether the network is congested or not.” • Dynamic Pricing • MacKie-Mason, ’95: “We argue that a feedback signal in the form of a variable price for network service is a workable tool to aid network operators in controlling Internet traffic. We suggest that these prices should vary dynamically based on the current utilization of network resources.”

  18. History of Pricing Research

  19. Other Markets: Electricity “Day Ahead” Pricing * Sen, et al., “A Survey of Broadband Data Pricing: Past Proposals, Current Plans, and Future Trends”, 2012.

  20. III. Challenges

  21. Key Questions • Optimized Price Computation? • Correct Incentives? TUBE Theory • Practical Economic Modeling • System Design Issues • How to assess TDP benefits? • Will real customers respond? TUBE System TUBE Trial

  22. IV. TUBE Technology

  23. Time Dependent Pricing (TDP) Large scale ISP cost optimization, taking user reaction into account

  24. ISP’s Optimization Problem Cost of overshooting capacity Cost of rewards

  25. Estimating Waiting Function Economic modeling reward waiting function patience index delay

  26. Patience Index: Initialization

  27. TDP: Shifting Peak to Valley

  28. TDP Performance

  29. V. TUBE Princeton Trial (May 2011-January 2012)

  30. Princeton Trial: Money Flow • 50 AT&T participants : 27 iPhones, 23 iPads • Faculty, staff, and students • 14 Academic units

  31. TUBE App: Information Screens

  32. TUBE App: Scheduling Screens

  33. VI. Princeton Trial Results

  34. Usage Statistics • How much bandwidth participants use? – ‘Heavy tailed’ • Which applications use the most bandwidth? – Video streaming 20% 75% July-September, 2011

  35. Price Sensitivity • Do users wait to use mobile data in return for a monetary discount? • Average usage decreasein high-price periods relative to the changes in low-price periods (iPads: -10% in high-price, 15% in low-price periods) October 2011

  36. Notification Effectiveness • Do notifications impact usage? • 80-90% of users decreaseor did notchange their usage after the 1st notification • For all subsequent notifications, about 60-80% of the active users decreasetheir usage, while the others remained price-insensitive. iPads iPhones

  37. Psychological Factors • Do users respond more to the numerical values of TDP prices or to the color of the price indicator bar on the home screen? Period Type 1 and 3 Period Type 1 and 2

  38. Optimized TDP Impact • Does the peak usage decrease with time-dependent pricing? And does this decrease come at the expense of an overall decrease in usage? • Optimized TDP reduce the peak-to-average ratio (max reduction: 30%) • Overall usage increase with TDP (demand gain in valley periods) Peak Usage Volume Peak-to-Average Ratio

  39. Impact on Web Ecosystem • Does the application usage distribution change due to TDP? • People are motivated to use more bandwidth during low-price periods, “valley filling”.

  40. VII. Post-Trial Survey

  41. Viability • Will you be able to decide on “when” to use? • “I think it's a great idea, ..the iPadswould say, 'If you wait a half an hour, you can have...' I thought that was incredibly useful. And I would be able to make that decision.” • Are there apps for which you usually wait? • “[I]f I'm out in my car and I needed it for GPS, I wouldn't care how much money I'm spending… if I just wanted to be on a social network or check my email, I would certainly wait.”

  42. Usefulness • What are your main concerns with TDP? • “If it's predictable, yes, I think so, because let's say I know that definitely everyday from 9 to 10 it's less, then I can plan a little bit.” • Was the color-coded notification bar useful to you? • “I group the colors I would see if it's a good color for me... because I couldn't always figure out what it meant in terms of the dollar amount and translate that into how much I was using”

  43. Opinions • Were you tempted to use more data when the discounts were higher? • “[laughs] Kind of! But that also goes toward my personality of if it's on sale I must buy it!” • Will TDP adversely affect high-bandwidth app developers? • “I don't think this will result in those kinds of applications being developed less, and I think that's because you're giving users the option”

  44. Related Publications:[1] “TUBE: Time-Dependent Pricing of Mobile Data”, SIGCOMM 2012. [2] “A Survey of Broadband Data Pricing: Past Proposals, Current Plans, and Future Trends”, under submission in ACM Computing Surveys. http://scenic.princeton.edu/tube/ Thank you

  45. Princeton Workshop on Smart Broadband Pricing soumyas@ princeton.edu

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