TY - JOUR
T1 - Customized Data Plans for Mobile Users
T2 - Feasibility and Benefits of Data Trading
AU - Zheng, Liang
AU - Joe-Wong, Carlee
AU - Tan, Chee Wei
AU - Ha, Sangtae
AU - Chiang, Mung
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported in part by the NSF under Grant CNS-1347234 and Grant CNS-1456847, in part by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong under Project RGC 11207615 and Project 7004680, in part by the Hong Kong Innovation and Technology Fund under Grant ITS/180/16, and in part by the Applied Research Grant under Project 9667137.
Publisher Copyright:
© 1983-2012 IEEE.
PY - 2017/4
Y1 - 2017/4
N2 - The growing volume of mobile data traffic has led many Internet service providers (ISPs) to cap the monthly data usage of their users and to charge overage fees, when the data caps are exceeded. Yet data caps imperfectly capture the reality of heterogeneous data usage over a month-even the same user may have varied requirements from month to month. In response, some ISPs are providing alternative avenues for users to customize data plans to their needs. In this paper, we examine a secondary data market, as for example created by China Mobile Hong Kong, in which users can buy and sell leftover data caps from one another. While similar to an auction in that users submit bids to buy and sell data, it differs from traditional double auctions in that the ISP serves as the middleman between buyers and sellers. Such a market faces two questions. First, can users learn each others' trading behavior well enough for the market to function, and second, do ISPs have a financial incentive to offer such a market? Different users' abilities to trade data depend on others, thus forcing users to not only optimize the amounts of data they bid, but also to learn and adjust for other users' trading behavior. We derive users' optimal behavior and propose an algorithm for ISPs to match buyers and sellers. We compare the optimal matchings for different ISP objectives and derive conditions under which the secondary market increases ISP revenue: while the ISP loses revenue from overage fees, it can assess administration fees and profit from the differences between the buyer and seller prices. Finally, we use one year of usage data from 100 U.S. mobile users to simulate the market dynamics and to illustrate that sustainable conditions for a revenue increase for the ISP can hold in practice.
AB - The growing volume of mobile data traffic has led many Internet service providers (ISPs) to cap the monthly data usage of their users and to charge overage fees, when the data caps are exceeded. Yet data caps imperfectly capture the reality of heterogeneous data usage over a month-even the same user may have varied requirements from month to month. In response, some ISPs are providing alternative avenues for users to customize data plans to their needs. In this paper, we examine a secondary data market, as for example created by China Mobile Hong Kong, in which users can buy and sell leftover data caps from one another. While similar to an auction in that users submit bids to buy and sell data, it differs from traditional double auctions in that the ISP serves as the middleman between buyers and sellers. Such a market faces two questions. First, can users learn each others' trading behavior well enough for the market to function, and second, do ISPs have a financial incentive to offer such a market? Different users' abilities to trade data depend on others, thus forcing users to not only optimize the amounts of data they bid, but also to learn and adjust for other users' trading behavior. We derive users' optimal behavior and propose an algorithm for ISPs to match buyers and sellers. We compare the optimal matchings for different ISP objectives and derive conditions under which the secondary market increases ISP revenue: while the ISP loses revenue from overage fees, it can assess administration fees and profit from the differences between the buyer and seller prices. Finally, we use one year of usage data from 100 U.S. mobile users to simulate the market dynamics and to illustrate that sustainable conditions for a revenue increase for the ISP can hold in practice.
KW - Smart data pricing
KW - double auction
KW - mobile data trading
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85019973221&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85019973221&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/JSAC.2017.2679661
DO - 10.1109/JSAC.2017.2679661
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85019973221
SN - 0733-8716
VL - 35
SP - 949
EP - 963
JO - IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications
JF - IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications
IS - 4
M1 - 7874152
ER -