1. Smart Data Pricing (SDP)
Innovating Data Plans
Soumya Sen
Joint Work with: Sangtae Ha, Carlee Joe-Wong, Mung Chiang
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012

2. Challenges to the Internet
Is it 1
year
feasible ?
to keep the
Internet
economically
viable 10 $
/GB ?
&
technologically
sustainable
100 % ?
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012

3. Challenges to the Internet
Is it
Technological
factors 1 10
100
year
/GB $ %
feasible
to keep the
Internet
Human
factors
economically
viable
&
Economic
factors
technologically
sustainable ?
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012

4. Challenges to the Internet
NetEcon as a Solution
feasible
economically
viable
Is it
technologically
sustainable
to keep the
Internet
& ?
HCI,
Engineering
Systems
Technological
factors
Consumer
Behavior
User
Trials
Network
Economics
Human
factors
Economics
Theory
Tools
Methods
Economic
factors
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012

5. NetEcon: A Holistic Agenda
Technology
Network
Economics
HCI &
Analytics
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012

6. What is Smart Data Pricing (SDP)?
A. Usage pricing/metering/throttling/capping B. Time/location/congestion-dependent pricing C. App based pricing D. Smart Markets, Sponsored content E. Paris metro pricing F. Quota-aware content distribution G. All of the above…
Time-Dependent Pricing
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012

7. NetEcon as a Solution
The Driving Forces
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012

8. Evolution of Access Pricing
The Driving Forces
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012

9. Time Elasticity Large Peak-Valley Differential Opportunities for
Streaming
videos,
Gaming
Texting,
Weather, Finance ,
Social Network updates
Cloud
Software
Downloads
Movies & Multimedia downloads,
P2P
Opportunities
Opportunities for
Exploiting time-elasticity
of demand
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012

10. Stakeholder Perspectives
Consumers
Policy feasibility
Industry moves: US, Europe, India, Africa
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012

11. Time Dependent Pricing (TDP)
ISP cost optimization,
taking user reaction into account
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012

12. ISP’s Optimization Problem
Cost of overshooting capacity
Cost of rewards
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012

13. Estimating Waiting Function
Economic modeling
reward
waiting function
delay
patience index
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012

14. TDP Architecture
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012

15. Princeton Trial TDP for 3G data Prototype development Trial
Money Flow
TDP for 3G data
Feasibility study
Prototype development
Trial
50 volunteers
Data Flow
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012

16. Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs)
Price display
Day-ahead
Color coded: red (<10%), orange (10 ~19%),
yellow (20 ~ 29%) and green (>= 30%)
Self-education
Top 5 Apps
User control
Autopilot mode
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012

17. Price Sensitivity
Do users wait to use mobile data in return for a monetary discount?
Average usage decrease in high-price periods relative to the changes in low-price periods
Usages changed by -10.1% in high-price
and 15.7% in low-price periods
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012

18. Notification Effectiveness
Do notifications impact usage?
About 60-80% of the active users decrease their usage in response to price notification pop-ups
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012

19. UI Effectiveness
Do users respond more to the numerical values of TDP prices or to the color of the price indicator bar on the home screen?
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012

20. 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
Overall usage significantly increase with TDP
30% PAR reduction
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012

21. Impact on Ecosystem
Does the application usage distribution change due to TDP?
People are motivated to use more bandwidth during low-price periods, “valley filling”.
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012

22. Viability Will you be able to decide on “when” to use?
“I think it's a great idea, ..the iPads would 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 , I would certainly wait.”
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012

23. 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”
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012

24. 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”
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012

25. Prototypes and Trials
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012

26. Soumya Sen, WITE 2012

27. From $10/GB To SDP Real progress feasible Collaboration will help
Collaboration will help
Get to win-win for all
References:
S. Sen, C. Joe-Wong, S. Ha, M.Chiang, “Incentivizing Time-Shifting of Data: A Survey of Time-Dependent Pricing for Internet Access”, IEEE Communications Magazine, Nov
S. Ha, S. Sen, C. Joe-Wong, Y. Im, M. Chiang, “TUBE: Time Dependent Pricing for Mobile Data”, ACM SIGCOMM 2012.
S. Sen, C. Joe-Wong, S. Ha, J. Bawa, “When the Price is Right: Enabling Time-Dependent Pricing of Broadband Data,” ACM SIGCHI 2013.
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012