Monetizing Mobile Data via Data Rewards
Monetizing Mobile Data via Data Rewards
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DOI：
10.1109/jsac.2020.2971867
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发表时间：
2019-11
影响因子：
16.4
通讯作者：
Haoran Yu;Ermin Wei;R. Berry
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Haoran Yu;Ermin Wei;R. Berry
大多数移动网络运营商通过直接向用户收取数据套餐订阅费用来产生收入。一些运营商现在还向用户提供数据奖励，以激励他们观看移动广告，这使得运营商能够从广告商那里收取费用并创造新的收入来源。在这项工作中，我们分析和比较了两种数据奖励方案：一种是考虑订阅的奖励（SAR）方案，另一种是不考虑订阅的奖励（SUR）方案。在SAR方案下，只有运营商数据套餐的订阅用户才有资格获得奖励；在SUR方案下，所有用户都有资格获得奖励（例如，未订阅数据套餐的用户仍然可以获得SIM卡，并通过观看广告获得数据奖励）。我们通过一个两阶段的斯塔克尔伯格博弈来模拟运营商、用户和广告商之间的相互作用，并描述了在SAR和SUR方案下他们的均衡策略。我们表明，SAR方案可以带来更多的订阅量以及数据市场中运营商更高的收入，而SUR方案可以带来更好的广告收视率以及广告市场中运营商更高的收入。我们进一步表明，运营商在这两种方案之间的最优选择对用户的数据消费效用函数和运营商的网络容量很敏感。我们提供了一些反直觉的见解。例如，当每个用户具有对数效用函数时，当且仅当运营商的网络容量较小时，它应该采用SUR方案（即对订阅用户和非订阅用户都给予奖励）。
Most mobile network operators generate revenues by directly charging users for data plan subscriptions. Some operators now also offer users data rewards to incentivize them to watch mobile ads, which enables the operators to collect payments from advertisers and create new revenue streams. In this work, we analyze and compare two data rewarding schemes: a Subscription-Aware Rewarding (SAR) scheme and a Subscription-Unaware Rewarding (SUR) scheme. Under the SAR scheme, only the subscribers of the operators’ data plans are eligible for the rewards; under the SUR scheme, all users are eligible for the rewards (e.g., the users who do not subscribe to the data plans can still get SIM cards and receive data rewards by watching ads). We model the interactions among an operator, users, and advertisers by a two-stage Stackelberg game, and characterize their equilibrium strategies under both the SAR and SUR schemes. We show that the SAR scheme can lead to more subscriptions and a higher operator revenue from the data market, while the SUR scheme can lead to better ad viewership and a higher operator revenue from the ad market. We further show that the operator’s optimal choice between the two schemes is sensitive to the users’ data consumption utility function and the operator’s network capacity. We provide some counter-intuitive insights. For example, when each user has a logarithmic utility function, the operator should apply the SUR scheme (i.e., reward both subscribers and non-subscribers) if and only if it has a small network capacity.