Modeling the Price-Reduction Effect in Mobile Telecommunications Traffic

As needs for telecommunications services diversify, an increasingly wide range of telecommunications services is becoming available in the market. Any subscriber can find a service to satisfy his/her telecommunication requirements and competition between providers to retain heavy users is increasing. Service price reductions are one retention strategy, although price reductions for one service can affect the individual-level usage for other services. Price reductions can also be imposed on a service provider by regulation. For these reasons, understanding how price reductions affect service usage is of growing importance to the telecommunications industry for purposes of pricing and tariff development. In this paper, we develop an individual-level usage model for telecommunications services and analyze the effects on usage of a price reduction. We apply the model to age-stratified aggregate traffic data for a Korean mobile telecommunication service provider. Finally, we develop a model to support a market segmentation and price reduction strategy.