Feasibility study to evaluate the potential entry of a new F-MVNO into the Spanish mobile market

The mobile market until a decade ago had been composed mainly of Mobile Network Operators (MNOs). To promote greater competition in this market the European Commission (EC) has promoted various actions in the regulatory and policy environment in Europe. This has significantly facilitated the appearance of new players in this market, such as Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs), which in the case of the Spanish mobile market grew from 4 MNOs to 38 non-homogeneous operators by early 2017. This paper presents an assessment of the economic feasibility of the entry of a new Full-Mobile Virtual Network Operator (F-MVNO) in the Spanish mobile market. This operator does not own band rights and therefore has to negotiate with a host operator (HO) for use of spectrum and has to provide the suitable and necessary devices that route and switch calls. Moreover, it has to ensure the interoperability of its own services with other operators and has to manage the services and traffic generated by its own subscribers. The examples of evaluation analyzed in this work consider six different scenarios over five years. The evaluation for each scenario calculates the average return per user (ARPU) or the income per subscriber and the fixed and variable costs needed to provide the proposed services. The data used in this evaluation are provided by the National Commission for Markets and Competition, NCMC or “la Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia, CNMC” in Spain [1], which is in charge of publishing quarterly the available data about the Spanish mobile market. The results show for each scenario the minimum number of subscribers that a new F-MVNO needs to ensure its economic feasibility (break-even point) and the time necessary to reach it. The methodology used in this work may also serve as a guide to assess the economic feasibility of new F-MVNOs entering in other European countries.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Generating demand functions for data plans from mobile network operators based on users’ profiles

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10922-018-9448-1The evaluation of pricing approaches for mobile data services proposed in the literature can rarely be done in practice. Evaluation by simulation is the most common practice. In these proposals demand and utility functions that describe the reaction of users to offered service prices, use traditional and arbitrary functions (linear, exponential, logit, etc.). In this paper, we present a new approach to construct a simulation model whose output can be used as an alternative method to create demand functions avoiding to use arbitrary and predefined demand functions. However, it is out of the scope of this paper to utilize them to propose pricing approaches, since the main objective of this article is to show the difference between the arbitrary demand functions used and our approach that come from users’ data. The starting point in this paper is to consider data offered from Eurostat, although other data sources could be used for the same purposes with the aim to offer more realistic values that could characterize more appropriately, what users are demanding. In this sense, some demographic and psychographic characteristics of the users are included and others such as the utilization of application usage profiles, as parameters that are included in the user`s profiles. These characteristics and usage profiles make up the user profile that will influence users’ behavior in the model. Using the same procedure, Mobile Network Operators could feed their customers’ data into the model and use it to validate their pricing approaches more accurately before their real implementation or simulate future or hypothetical scenarios. It also makes possible to segment users and make insights for decision-making. Results presented in this paper refer to a simple study case, since the purpose of the paper is to show how the proposal model works and to reveal its differences with arbitrary demand functions used. Of course, results depend on the set of parameters assigned to characterize each user’s profile.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Analysis of a pricing method for elastic services with guaranteed GoS

Service Providers (SPs), which offer services based on elastic reservations with a guaranteed Grade of Service (GoS), should know how to price these services and how to quantify the benefits in different scenarios. This paper analyzes a method for evaluating the price of a service based on elastic reservations with a guaranteed Grade of Service. The method works as follows: First, the SP determines the requirements of the service that wants to offer; Second, the SP evaluates the average rate of the accepted elastic reservations of the service with a guaranteed GoS; Third, the SP calculates the price that guarantees the GoS with an aggregate demand function that depends on a demand modulation factor of the elastic reservations that is the mean reserved bandwidth, Bres; and Finally, the SP obtains the optimum value of the elasticity of the reservations that gives the maximum revenue, and the required access bandwidth in this case. The paper not only applies the method to a class i of elastic reservations when a linear-based demand and a revenue function are selected, but it also analyzes the influence of each one of the considered parameters. This method could be extended to the case of multiple classes of independent and guaranteed elastic services, applying the method to each service with its estimated demand and revenue functions.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Technology and market conditions toward a new competitive landscape in the wireless access market

This article argues that the wireless telecommunication market is about to witness a shift in business models and market structure as a result of the deployment of new broadband access technologies, spectrum management techniques, policy-based network management, and the drive of new entrants to compete against the incumbents. The article discusses four agents of evolutionary changes: a range of broadband wireless access standards and technologies that are frontrunners in the industry’s efforts to embody the next generation of wireless networks; new provider-customer relationships facilitated through changes in the usual contract patterns that will allow consumers to enter short-term and spot contracts with the new wireless providers; an overview of the current debate on spectrum management; and an explanation of how autonomic communications and policybased management would support the new structure. Finally, the article asserts the necessity for the integration of the heterogeneous technologies that make up this emerging, hybrid wireless landscape, and describes the economic characteristics of a new competitive scenario.Postprint (published version

Evaluación de prestaciones de RSVP extendido para un escenario con garantías de distribución

In some guaranteed data delivery scenarios, servers can quickly and carefully allocate the available bandwidth among the requests of the users to reduce rejections. This is particularly important when reservations are higher than minimum required delivery rate (semi-elastic reservations). As an example, when semi-elastic reservations utilize all the available server bandwidth and a new flow reservation arrives, it is useful to reallocate current reservations to accept the new one. The RSVP protocol is receiver oriented and it is in charge of setting up these reservations. However, in some cases, to reallocate bandwidth in a receiver riented way could delay the required sender reservation adjustments. This paper presents a new extension of the RSVP signaling messages that allows the server to adjust and modify these reservations. The performance evaluation of the extended and the native RSVP signaling protocols when used to manage the access bandwidth of a semi elastic flows server shows the benefits of the extensions. In particular, the use of resource reservation is reduced because of a more efficient bandwidth usage. In addition, the blocking probability is also reduced because of a more flexible bandwidth reallocation situation. The authors believe that this procedure is an intermediate step to improve the lack of flexibility that RSVP presents.Preprin

How evolving network access and network management technologies are redefining the competitive wireless markets

This paper examines some of the key problems users encounter when accessing current generation wireless networks. Using a case study of a hypothetical user, the authors explore the emerging services and the new broadband wireless network technologies necessary to carry them out. This paper analyses the issues associated with an observed trend in the industry that exposes potential changes to the long-term, rigid commercial relation between wireless providers and users: as a result of a range of evolved broadband wireless access standards and technologies, autonomic communications and policy-based management, and new pricing schemes, consumers will likely face new opportunities to enter short-term and spot contracts with the new wireless providers. This new landscape also allow multiple competing Access Providers (APs) to dynamically assign prices, and poses new and interesting challenges to the regulatory function. The paper also discusses a framework for the integration of heterogeneous technologies and mana ment policies based on the network context that make up this emerging, hybrid wireless landscape, and describes the economic characteristics of new markets likely to arise.Postprint (published version

Redes, sistemas y servicios de comunicación : exámenes resueltos

Aquest llibre és una recopilació d'exàmens resolts corresponents als exàmens finals de l'assignatura Xarxes Sistemes i Serveis de Comunicació de la ETSETB, en la qual s'imparteixen els coneixements bàsics per a l'anàlisi, l'avaluació i el dimensionament de xarxes de dades. La col·lecció està formada per dotze exàmens, que comprenen un període de sis anys. En tot moment, s'ha volgut ser fidel als exàmens que es van proposar al seu dia i, per tant, s'ha mantingut íntegrament el contingut de tots els enunciats. Esperem que aquesta obra sigui d'ajuda als estudiants para resoldre possibles dubtes en el desenvolupament dels exercicis i que els permeti augmentar la capacitat d'autoaprenentatge. Com a complement dels exercicis proposats, s'aconsella als estudiants que realitzin altres exercicis dels quals no disposin prèviament de la solució

A social model based on customers’ profiles for analyzing the churning process in the mobile market of data plans

Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) present wireless services of the same kind in identical zones, clients select the service taking into account any element they consider relevant. Churning hits on the design of the network and the method to assign prices by MNOs, and of course their earnings. Therefore, MNOs try to reduce churn detecting potential churners before they leave the service. Our approach to churn prediction considers each customer individually. Previous research shows that members of the social circle of a subscriber may influence churn. Thus, many scenarios that describe social relations, and in which churning processes could be expected, set an emerging challenge with practical implications. This paper uses the Agent-Based Modelling (ABM) technique to model customers. The model’s parameters include demographic and psychographic features as well as usage profiles according to their social behavior considering their customers’ profiles. Our model modifies and extends an existing real social network generator algorithm that considers customer’s profiles and homophily considerations to create connections. We show that using our approach, groups of customers with greater tendency to churn due to the influence of their social networks can be identified better.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Generating demand functions for data plans from mobile network operators based on users’ profiles

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10922-018-9448-1The evaluation of pricing approaches for mobile data services proposed in the literature can rarely be done in practice. Evaluation by simulation is the most common practice. In these proposals demand and utility functions that describe the reaction of users to offered service prices, use traditional and arbitrary functions (linear, exponential, logit, etc.). In this paper, we present a new approach to construct a simulation model whose output can be used as an alternative method to create demand functions avoiding to use arbitrary and predefined demand functions. However, it is out of the scope of this paper to utilize them to propose pricing approaches, since the main objective of this article is to show the difference between the arbitrary demand functions used and our approach that come from users’ data. The starting point in this paper is to consider data offered from Eurostat, although other data sources could be used for the same purposes with the aim to offer more realistic values that could characterize more appropriately, what users are demanding. In this sense, some demographic and psychographic characteristics of the users are included and others such as the utilization of application usage profiles, as parameters that are included in the user`s profiles. These characteristics and usage profiles make up the user profile that will influence users’ behavior in the model. Using the same procedure, Mobile Network Operators could feed their customers’ data into the model and use it to validate their pricing approaches more accurately before their real implementation or simulate future or hypothetical scenarios. It also makes possible to segment users and make insights for decision-making. Results presented in this paper refer to a simple study case, since the purpose of the paper is to show how the proposal model works and to reveal its differences with arbitrary demand functions used. Of course, results depend on the set of parameters assigned to characterize each user’s profile.Peer Reviewe

Evaluación de prestaciones de RSVP extendido para un escenario con garantías de distribución

In some guaranteed data delivery scenarios, servers can quickly and carefully allocate the available bandwidth among the requests of the users to reduce rejections. This is particularly important when reservations are higher than minimum required delivery rate (semi-elastic reservations). As an example, when semi-elastic reservations utilize all the available server bandwidth and a new flow reservation arrives, it is useful to reallocate current reservations to accept the new one. The RSVP protocol is receiver oriented and it is in charge of setting up these reservations. However, in some cases, to reallocate bandwidth in a receiver riented way could delay the required sender reservation adjustments. This paper presents a new extension of the RSVP signaling messages that allows the server to adjust and modify these reservations. The performance evaluation of the extended and the native RSVP signaling protocols when used to manage the access bandwidth of a semi elastic flows server shows the benefits of the extensions. In particular, the use of resource reservation is reduced because of a more efficient bandwidth usage. In addition, the blocking probability is also reduced because of a more flexible bandwidth reallocation situation. The authors believe that this procedure is an intermediate step to improve the lack of flexibility that RSVP presents