Smart Data Pricing (SDP)
Innovating Data Plans
Soumya Sen
Joint Work with: Sangtae Ha, Carlee Joe-Wong, Mung Chiang
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012
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Challenges to the Internet
Is it
feasible?
1 year
to keep the
Internet
economically
viable ?
$10 /GB
&
technologically
sustainable ?
100 %
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012
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Challenges to the Internet
Is it
feasible
Technological
year
factors
1
to keep the
Internet
economically
viable
Human
factors
/GB
$10
&
technologically
sustainable ?
Economic
factors%
100
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012
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Challenges
NetEcon as
to athe
Solution
Internet
Is it
HCI,
Engineering
feasible
to keep the
Internet
Consumer
economically
Behavior
viable
&
Tools
technologically
Economics
sustainable ?
Technological
factors
Network
Human
Economics
factors
Economic
factors
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012
Systems
User
Trials
Methods
Theory
4
NetEcon: A Holistic Agenda
Technology
Network
Economics
HCI &
Analytics
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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
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NetEcon
The Driving
as a Forces
Solution
Growth in Mobile Data Demand
Mobile
Video
Cloud
Services
Data-Hungry
Apps
High-Resolu on
Devices
Rapid growth in
demand for mobile data
Annual Growth Sta s cs
Mobile Video
Total traffic (2011)
62%
Streaming CAGR (2011 – 16)
34%
83%
Consumer Traffic CAGR (2010 – 15)
67%
Skype (2010)
87%
Source: Cisco VNI 2011 – 2016 (h p://www. nyurl.com/VNI2012)
Cloud Services
Consumer traffic (2011)
Source: Cisco Global Cloud Index 2010 – 15 (h p:// nyurl.com/CiscoCloud2010)
Data-Hungry Apps
Facebook (2010)
267%
Source: Allot Global Mobile Trends Report 2011 (h p://money.cnn.com/2011/02/08/technology/smartphone_data_usage/index.htm)
High-Resolu on Devices
iPad2
1024 x 768 pixels
iPad LTE
2048 x 1536 pixels
Source: Apple (h p://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/)
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Evolution
The Driving
of Access
Forces
Pricing
Growth in Mobile Data Demand
Mobile
Video
Cloud
Services
Data-Hungry
Apps
High-Resolu on
Devices
Rapid growth in
demand for mobile data
Annual Growth Sta s cs
Mobile Video
Total traffic (2011)
62%
Streaming CAGR (2011 – 16)
34%
83%
Consumer Traffic CAGR (2010 – 15)
67%
Skype (2010)
87%
Source: Cisco VNI 2011 – 2016 (h p://www. nyurl.com/VNI2012)
Cloud Services
Consumer traffic (2011)
Source: Cisco Global Cloud Index 2010 – 15 (h p:// nyurl.com/CiscoCloud2010)
Data-Hungry Apps
Facebook (2010)
267%
Source: Allot Global Mobile Trends Report 2011 (h p://money.cnn.com/2011/02/08/technology/smartphone_data_usage/index.htm)
High-Resolu on Devices
iPad2
1024 x 768 pixels
iPad LTE
2048 x 1536 pixels
Source: Apple (h p://www.apple.com/ipad/compare/)
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Time Elasticity
Large Peak-Valley Differential
Movies &
Multimedia
downloads,
P2P
Opportunities for
Exploiting time-elasticity
of demand
Volume
Streaming
videos,
Gaming
Opportunities
Software
Downloads
Cloud
Email,
Social
Network
updates
Texting,
Weather,
Finance
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012
Time Elasticity
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Stakeholder Perspectives
• Consumers
• Policy feasibility
• Industry moves: US, Europe, India, Africa
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Time Dependent Pricing (TDP)
ISP cost optimization,
taking user reaction into account
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ISP’s Optimization Problem
Cost of
overshooting
capacity
Cost of rewards
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Estimating Waiting Function
Economic modeling
reward
waiting function
delay
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patience index
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TDP Architecture
User Device
ISP Server
Secure Connection
User GUI
Youtube
Usage
Monitor
Netflix
Autopilot
Flipboard
Magazine
! "#$%&
' (%) *+, - . &
Apple
App Store
Price
Information
Price
optimizer
User
Behavior
Estimation
/ 00&
1+2%) 34%(&
Application Traffic
Aggregate
Traffic
Measurement
Allow or Block
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Princeton Trial
Money Flow
• TDP for 3G data
TDP based payments
Current pricing scheme
$$
– Feasibility study
$$
AT&T
$$
Participants
• Prototype development
TUBE Project
Wireless Provider
Data Flow
BSS
• Trial
MCS
• 50 volunteers
VLR
Data
Flow
PSTN
3G Core Network
Gateway
GMSC
HLR
AuC
BSC
SGSN
Soumya Sen, WITE 2012
DNS
VPN
GGSN
User's
iPhone,
iPad
AT&T
Firewall
AT&T's
mobile
network
Data
Flow
NAT
TUBE
Servers
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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
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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
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Notification Effectiveness
• Do notifications impact usage?
– About 60-80% of the active users decrease their
usage in response to price notification pop-ups
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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?
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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
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Impact on Ecosystem
• Does the application usage distribution change due to TDP?
Usage (% of Total)
– People are motivated to use more bandwidth during low-price
periods, “valley filling”.
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
Before TDP
With TDP
Movies
Web
Downloads
Music
News/
Mags.
Other
Applica on Type
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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 email, I would certainly wait.”
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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”
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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”
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Prototypes and Trials
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From $10/GB To SDP
• Real progress feasible
– http://www.datami.com
• Collaboration will help
– http://scenic.princeton.edu/SDP2012/
• 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. 2012.
• 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.
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