Title: Tariff balancing for increased subscription and revenue in a mobile network

Authors: Swadesh Kumar Samanta, John Woods, Mohammed Ghanbari, Zillur Rahman

Addresses: Department of Computing and Electronic Systems, University of Essex, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK. ' Department of Computing and Electronic Systems, University of Essex, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK. ' Department of Computing and Electronic Systems, University of Essex, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK. ' Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee 247667, India

Abstract: This research demonstrates a tariff balancing technique between subscription and usage in mobile networks based on cost and demand, something which is not fully considered by operators. The cost of provisioning access in wireless networks is negligible and, therefore, the access price can be reduced to increase the subscription. Empirical analysis for both developing and developed countries shows a strong correlation between access price and demand for subscription. Applying real world data on a non-linear demand model, we show that a trade-off between price of access and per-minute-call can be made to increase both the revenue and subscription simultaneously.

Keywords: access pricing; call pricing; cost; mobile communications; revenue optimisation; subscription demand; tariff balancing; mobile networks.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMC.2009.022442

International Journal of Mobile Communications, 2009 Vol.7 No.2, pp.213 - 231

Published online: 05 Jan 2009 *

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