The mobile traffic growth is a catalyst of further technological advancements and evolution in wireless access markets. In this presentation, we will examine the problem of optimal tariff plan design in four different scenarios. Firstly, we examine a monopolistic retail market where a service provider tries to maximize its profit from selling telecommunication service to users that are constrained by their willingness-to-pay. The provider needs information about users preferences and, in this endeavour, it will find a valuable ally, u-map, a crowd-sourcing platform that collects users preferences and builds user profiles. The monopoly model is further enhanced to duopoly, where we examine the interaction between two providers active in the retail market. In the third model, we examine the joint problem of price setting for a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO), which serves end users in the retail market, and for a Mobile Network Operator, which leases its network to the MVNO at the wholesale market. We examine the decisions of both operators and the interactions between them as well as the contribution of u-map and the impact of partial knowledge of users preferences. In the last model to examine, the tariff plan design is further constrained by a capacity constraint, where the operator has to take into account not only users willingness-to-pay but also that the traffic it can serve is limited.
The optimal tariff plan is designed, the impact of inaccurate estimation of the user profile is evaluated and the contribution of u-map is quantified.