Pricing Data: A Look at Past Proposals, Current Plans, and Future Trends

Traditionally, network operators have only used simple flat-rate unlimited data plans to vie for customers. But today, with the popularity of mobile devices and exponential growth of apps, videos, and clouds, service providers are gradually moving towards more sophisticated pricing schemes, including dynamic pricing. This decade will therefore likely witness a major shift in network pricing schemes. However, there are several unique challenges with the dynamic pricing of mobile data, including new system requirements and social adoption. This paper reviews some of the well known past pricing proposals (both static and dynamic), their current realization in various data plans, and new research directions. Unlike a traditional survey, this work is an attempt to explore benefits and challenges of pricing plans that are currently being used by ISPs in different parts of the world so as to facilitate the networking community’s efforts in recognizing trends and shaping an appropriate research agenda.