Pricing for Mobile Virtual Network Operators: The contribution of u-map

The mobile traffic growth is a catalyst of further technological advancements and evolution in wireless access markets. This work focuses on the joint problem of price setting for a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO), which serves end users in the retail market, and for the Mobile Network Operator, which leases its network to the MVNO at the wholesale market. We show that information about user profiles enables operators to achieve maximum profit. U-map, a crowd-sourcing platform that collects users preferences and builds user profiles, can provide such information. The analysis demonstrates that when only one operator employs (partial) information, the profit of both operators is affected. Furthermore, the cooperation between the operators results in higher profit compared to blind competition.