TY - GEN
T1 - Do mobile data plans affect usage? Results from a pricing trial with ISP customers
AU - Joe-Wong, Carlee
AU - Ha, Sangtae
AU - Sen, Soumya
AU - Chiang, Mung
N1 - Funding Information:
We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of our colleagues at the Matanuska Telephone Association. Part of the work was supported by NSF CNS-1117126.
Publisher Copyright:
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015.
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - The growing amount of traffic in mobile data networks is causing concern for Internet service providers (ISPs), especially smaller ISPs that need to lease expensive links to Tier 1 networks. Large amounts of traffic in “peak” hours are of especial concern, since network capacity must be provisioned to accommodate these peaks. In response, many ISPs have begun trying to influence user behavior with pricing. Timedependent pricing (TDP) can help reduce peaks, since it allows ISPs to charge higher prices during peak periods.We present results from the first TDP trial with a commercial ISP. In addition to analyzing applicationspecific mobile andWiFi traffic, we compare changes in user behavior due to monthly data caps and time-dependent prices. We find that monthly data caps tend to reduce usage, while TDP can increase usage as users consume more data during discounted times. Moreover, unlike data caps, TDP reduces the network’s peak-to-average usage ratio, lessening the need for network over-provisioning and increasing ISP profit.
AB - The growing amount of traffic in mobile data networks is causing concern for Internet service providers (ISPs), especially smaller ISPs that need to lease expensive links to Tier 1 networks. Large amounts of traffic in “peak” hours are of especial concern, since network capacity must be provisioned to accommodate these peaks. In response, many ISPs have begun trying to influence user behavior with pricing. Timedependent pricing (TDP) can help reduce peaks, since it allows ISPs to charge higher prices during peak periods.We present results from the first TDP trial with a commercial ISP. In addition to analyzing applicationspecific mobile andWiFi traffic, we compare changes in user behavior due to monthly data caps and time-dependent prices. We find that monthly data caps tend to reduce usage, while TDP can increase usage as users consume more data during discounted times. Moreover, unlike data caps, TDP reduces the network’s peak-to-average usage ratio, lessening the need for network over-provisioning and increasing ISP profit.
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U2 - 10.1007/978-3-319-15509-8_8
DO - 10.1007/978-3-319-15509-8_8
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84924386415
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
SP - 96
EP - 108
BT - Passive and Active Measurement - 16th International Conference, PAM 2015, Proceedings
A2 - Liu, Yong
A2 - Mirkovic, Jelena
PB - Springer Verlag
T2 - 16th International Conference on Passive and Active Measurement, PAM 2015
Y2 - 19 March 2015 through 20 March 2015
ER -