Volume 6 - Issue 3
An Investigation of Telecom Mobile Data Billing Plans
- Yi-Bing Lin
Department of Computer Science, National Chiao Tung University Hsinchu 30010, Taiwan, R.O.C.
liny@cs.nctu.edu.tw
- Yun-Wei Lin
Department of Computer Science, National Chiao Tung University Hsinchu 30010, Taiwan, R.O.C.
jyneda@gmail.com
- Jo-Ching Wu
Department of Computer Science, National Chiao Tung University Hsinchu 30010, Taiwan, R.O.C.
banbandom@gmail.com
- Yung-Ching Wang
Department of Computer Science, National Chiao Tung University Hsinchu 30010, Taiwan, R.O.C.
yong.cing723@gmail.com
Keywords: 3G, 4G LTE, mobile data service, unlimited and limited data billing, shared and nonshared data billing
Abstract
In the recent years, mobile operators have provided many billing alternatives such as limited and
unlimited billing plans, and shared and non-shared data plans for the users with different needs. A
non-shared data plan is designed for a single user with a limited monthly data allowance. On the
other hand, the monthly data allowance of a shared data plan is shared by a group of users with multiple
devices. The mobile operators often conduct the primary price study to compare their billing
plans, which shows the relationship between the prices of the billing plans against the fixed amounts
of data usage. Although the primary price study can easily and quickly draw the conclusions, it
only provides rough billing plan suggestions. In reality, the amounts of data usage are not fixed,
and therefore should be measured from commercial mobile networks to reflect the user behaviors on
data usage. This paper proposes an analytical approach by using the measured data of Chunghwa
Telecom Co., Ltd. (CHT), the largest telecommunications company in Taiwan, to derive the expected
payments of various billing plans. The results of the analytical model are more accurate than those
of the primary price study, and therefore provide better suggestions for billing plan selection. Other
mobile operators can easily use our model to analyze the billing alternativeswith their measured data.