Mobile Data Services: Embracing Flexibility in Time, Location, and User Identity

This book is on mobile networks with the emphasis on mobile data services. Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) monetize the scarce wireless spectrum resource, generating revenue through the provision of mobile data services to their customers. The traditional mobile data service is a three-part tariff involving a monthly data quota. This kind of service lacks for flexibility seriously, since it rigidly dictates the usage of data based on time, location, and user identity, limiting when, where, and by whom the data can be consumed. The severer market competition has recently forced the MNOs to explore more flexible data services from different dimensions. For instance, the rollover data service enables time flexibility by permitting unused data in the current month to be carried over for usage in the subsequent month. The day-pass data service enables location flexibility by granting users the ability to utilize domestic data while traveling overseas. The data trading service enables user-identity flexibility by creating a marketplace where users can either offload their surplus data or purchase additional data from one another. This book will delve into the economic issues of flexible mobile data services. The authors leverage game theory to analyze users’ optimal behaviour, and design economic mechanisms for MNOs’ data service optimization. This book will introduce who ultimately reaps the benefits from flexible mobile data services—whether it will be the mobile users or the MNOs themselves.