Patent Application
20080172240
NOT APPLICABLE
The invention relates to a method for calculating an optimized individual fee tariff system for a user of a telecommunication system.
Today, telecommunication systems cover a broad range of different services. E.g. such services may include telephone services, short texts message services, e-mail services, internet services and picture message services. All these services may be offered to be used from a home or office base or to be used as mobile services. The different services may even be further sub-divided, e.g. the telephone services may be differentiated as to the distance of the call (usually longer distances are more expensive than shorter ones) and the time at which the call is made (calls at night time are often cheaper than calls at day time). A still further differentiation is often made depending on the tariff system to which the recipient or recipients of the phone call, the text message and so on is entitled. Usually, phone calls, text messages and so on, which are conducted between two users entitled in the same fee tariff system are cheaper than those which are conducted between two or more users which are entitled in different fee tariff systems. All these differentiations discussed above are to be understood as different types of services in the sense of this description and the attached claims.
A major problem in telecommunication industries is how to select an appropriate fee tariff system for an individual user of a telecommunication system. Generally, users tend to use the various types of services in quite different ways. E.g. students and adolescents tend to intensively use text messaging and picture messaging and focus their using periods on afternoon and evening times and the weekend, with a main focus on national connections. Business people usually concentrate their types of services to national and international connections and often use e-mail services, concentrating their use to the working days. The different behavior of users with regard to the types of services used is often entitled as a user profile and in this description and the attached claims the term “user profile” should be understood in such a way as to define the frequency in which the different services are used by an individual user and the times in which they are used and the connection specification, i.e. whether national or international connections are used and which fee tariff system the persons to which the connection is established is entitled, and relevant further individual connection parameters.
It is a key competence for companies involved in telecommunication services to be able to offer each user a fee tariff system which is particularly well-suited for his user profile, i.e. which produces particularly low costs for this individual user profile. To satisfy this need providers of telecommunication services offer a number of different fee tariff systems which include individual fee tariffs for each type of service and are different in such a way that specific types of services are cheaper in some of the fee tariff systems than in others. By this, users which user profile mainly concentrates on one or more types of services are able to select a fee tariff system, wherein these specific types of services are offered at a particularly low price.
Usually, the user may select under a large number of different fee tariff systems. Though providers of telecommunication services usually name their fee tariff systems according to their specific focus, e.g. “business tariff” or “private tariff”, it is a major problem to select the fee tariff system which is particularly well-suited for an individual user.
An attempt was made to solve this problem in such a way, that the user identifies for each type of service its frequency of use in the past. This would allow to precisely calculate an optimum fee tariff system based on the assumption that the user will not change his user profile in the future. However, a major draw-back of this approach is that most users cannot provide such detailed information or at least are not willing to provide such detailed information because it is very time-consuming to identify the frequency of use for each type of service.
It is the object of the present invention to provide a method for selecting an optimum individual fee tariff system for a user of a telecommunication system in a more convenient and reliant way than existing selection methods can do.
This problem is solved by providing a method for selecting an optimized individual fee tariff system for a user of a telecommunication system, the fee tariff system comprising fee rates for at least two different types of services, the method comprising the steps of:
The method according to the invention significantly simplifies and improves the selection of an appropriate fee tariff system for an individual user profile. An aspect of the invention is to concentrate on specific data characterizing the user profile. By this, the method is much more convenient than prior art selecting methods. Whereas according to the prior art detailed information about the user profile consisting of frequencies of use for a number of types of services are required to select an appropriate fee tariff system, the method according to an embodiment of the invention conducts this selection based on only a very small number of pieces of information, in particular only using information about an actual total sum of money paid in the past for all types of services which shall be included in the fee tariff system (e.g. a monthly billing or an average of a number of monthly billings) and the identification of the fee tariff system under which this actual total sum of money was billed. The user thus has only to present two pieces of information which are generally well-known to him. Some embodiments of the invention refrain from acquiring specific data about frequency of use of individual types of services which the user cannot identify without remarkable effort.
The inventor has come to the conclusion that based on these two pieces of information a rather precise approach is possible to select an optimized individual fee tariff system by applying an algorithm to these pieces of information to calculate an estimated individual distribution of the frequency of use of the different types of services. By this application of an algorithm a dependency of typical user profiles from the amount of the actual total sum of money for all types of services can be used to provide a good estimation of the distribution of the individual distribution of the frequency of use of the different types of services. To allow a correct weighting of the individual types of services, the fee tariffs for each individual type of service according to the actual fee tariff system are applied.
Based on these pieces of information and the distribution of the frequency of use of the different types of services an alternative total sum of money paid for all types of services can be calculated for the distribution of the specific types of services as calculated. This alternative total sum of money can then be compared to the actual total sum of money and by this it can be determined, whether the alternative total sum of money is advantageous for the user.
The invention may be executed with additional pieces of information received from the user. It should be noted that the invention allows to calculate an optimized fee tariff system with only such two pieces of information (i.e. the actual total sum of money paid in the past for all types of services which shall be included in the fee tariff system (e.g. a monthly billing or an average of a number of monthly billings) and the identification of the fee tariff system under which this actual total sum of money was billed) received from the user consisting of the actual total sum of money paid for all types of services within a specific period of time in the past and the identification of the fee tariff system of the user in this period of time and not comprising any additional information.
Thus, the method according to the invention provides a simplified and convenient approach to select an appropriate fee tariff system for users of a telecommunication system.
As an alternative to the method described above, a first and a second alternative total sum of money can be calculated by applying a first and a second alternative fee tariff system, respectively. By this, the first, the second alternative total sum of money and the actual total sum of money can be compared and the optimum fee tariff system can be selected from the fee tariff systems according to which these total sums of money were calculated.
Still further, a large number of alternative total sums of money can be calculated by applying a respective large number of alternative fee tariff systems. As an example, the estimated distribution of the frequencies of use of the individual types of services can be applied to all fee tariff systems which are available for the user to evaluate all possibilities.
A first detail of the method according to the invention as discussed above is an improvement, wherein calculating the estimated individual distribution of the frequency of use of the different types of service from the user data comprises the steps of:
Each of these steps is described in further detail below. In one embodiment, the method may include applying a number of pre-stored typical distributions of the frequency of use of the different types of service. For example, a typical distribution would be that a typical user would send 60 e-mails, would have used 120 minutes (2 hours) of national phone calls, and 30 minutes of international phone calls in a given month. The pre-stored typical distributions may be derived from past data or can be created. Then, a typical amount of money for each type of service can be calculated for each of these distributions by applying the actual fee tariff system of the user. For example, the user may currently use tariff system X and may have spent $100 for services in a given month (e.g., November). Tariff system X may charge $0.083 per e-mail, $0.083 per minute of national phone calls, and $0.111 per minute of international calls. Applying Tariff system X to the typical pre-stored distribution, the amount of money for each type of service would be $5 for e-mail service, $10 for national phone service, and $10 for international phone call service. Then, if necessary, an individual amount of money for each type of service can be calculated by scaling each of the typical amounts of money previously determined with one single scaling factor such that the sum of all individual amounts of money of the types of service results in the actual total sum of money paid for all types of services. For example, in this example, a scaling factor can be created using the relative proportion of the actual cost of the user using Tariff X in a given month vs. the cost of the typical distribution using Tariff X. More specifically, the scaling factor could be “4” and could be calculated as follows: $100/($5+$5+$10)=4. If the previously described step is undertaken, an individual distribution of the frequency of use can be calculated for each type of service by applying the actual fee tariff system to the scaled individual amount of money for each type of service as calculated. More specifically, the scaling factor can be multiplied with the quantitative values associated with the typical distribution(s). For example, the typical distribution in this example, could be scaled as follows: (60 Emails; 2 hours of national calls; and 2 hours of international calls)×4=(240 Emails; 8 hours of national calls; and 8 hours of international calls). Then, as described above and below, one of a number of user profiles determined according to this process, which a total sum was calculated which is closest to the actual total sum as the estimated individual distribution of the frequency of use of the different types of service is selected.
This preferred embodiment allows to provide a good estimation of the individual distribution of the frequency of use of the different types of services from the user data consisting of the actual total sum money and the identification of the actual fee tariff system in the past. One step of this preferred embodiment is to apply a pre-determined typical distribution of the frequency of use of the different types of service. This pre-determined typical distribution could be selected under a number of pre-determined typical distributions stored in an memory by selection criteria like the actual total sum of money or the actual fee tariff system as input by the user. Preferably, for this step a logical operator combining the pre-determined typical distributions and the user data is applied to select the specific pre-determined typical distribution which shall be the basis for further calculating steps. Based on the such determined typical distribution the typical amount of money for each type of service can be calculated and from this a scaling of the number of typical amounts of money for the number of types of services can be done with one single scaling factor to comply with the actual total sum of money as received from the user. Based on the such scaled individual amounts of money the frequency of use for each type of service can be calculated by applying the actual fee tariff system as received from the user to the amounts of money.
The method according to the invention may be further improved in that the step of applying a pre-determined typical distribution of the frequency of use of the different types of service is done by selecting such a distribution which allows a maximum number of connections in the actual fee tariff system with the actual total sum of money, or a maximum duration of the connections in the actual fee tariff system with the actual total sum of money. By this, the distribution of the frequency of use for the different types of service is selected in such a way that it is assumed that the user used the actual fee tariff system in an optimized way, i.e. in such a way, that those types of service which are offered to a very competitive price in this fee tariff system are the types of service which are mainly used by the user. Based on such an assumption, the distribution of the frequency of use for the types of service will fit to the user behavior in most of the cases and further calculation will allow to select an optimum fee tariff system which fits to the most probable user behavior.
The invention can be further improved by including the steps according to claim 5. By this, the estimation of the distribution of the frequency of use of the types of service can be conducted more precisely by acknowledging a fixed individual frequency of use for at least one type of service which was precisely calculated from the user data and, based on this fixed individual frequency, calculating an estimated distribution of the frequency of use for the remaining types of service. By this, the determination of an estimated distribution can be further improved. In particular, claim 5 specifies that the step of applying a pre-determined typical distribution of the frequency of use of the different types of service is done by selecting such a distribution which allows:
Still further, it is preferred to include the steps according to claim 6. By this, additional information received from the user about one or more actual distributions of the frequency of use, such as one or more frequency of use for an individual type of service, can be used to select a user profile which is a best fit for the individual user out of a list of a number of user profiles. The method according to the invention can be significantly improved by receiving only one actual frequency of use for a type of service and often a user is able to provide such additional information without additional effort. By this, a user profile can be selected which is supposed to be in good compliance with the telecommunication behavior of the user.
The user may preferably select the actual fee tariff system from a list of fee tariff systems presented to him (on a display or the like). This list may preferably contain all fee tariff systems which are available at the time of the selecting step for an optimized individual fee tariff system which were available in the past.
According to another embodiment of the invention, the method for selecting an optimized individual fee tariff system for a user of a telecommunication system comprises the steps of:
By this, the user is offered a number of alternative total sums of money for a number of user profiles so that the user is given the possibility to select a user profile which he thinks is the best fit for him. By this, the user may exclude such user profiles which comprise types of services which are not used by himself so that the user is able to select those fee tariff systems which are best-suited for a user profile which he thinks is the best fit for himself. This improvement is of particular relevance if a number of an alternative total sums of money is calculated. In this case, the user is presented a number of total sums of money for different fee tariff systems and in these different fee tariff systems a number of user profiles are presented to the user, thus presenting a two-dimensional matrix to the user, wherein in one dimension the user profiles are listed and in the other dimension the fee tariff systems are listed. By this, a simple comparison between the different fee tariff systems for each user profile is possible and the user may conveniently select the fee tariff system which he considers to be the best fit for his telecommunication behaviour.
The method may be further improved according to claims 10 and 11.
A preferred embodiment of the invention is described referring to the figures attached to this description.
According to
In a second step 20 the user inputs his average monthly billing for all telecommunication services which are to be covered by the future fee tariff system.
As an optional step 30 the user may input further parameters describing his user profile, e.g. the frequency of use for a specific type of service or user attributes such as the age, the profession or the gender of the user or the type of use for the fee tariff system, e.g. professional or private use.
In the following step 40 the best profile for the user is sought. This step 40 includes a reversed simulation logic which is described below in further detail. As can be seen from
In a further preparation step 42 for all these user profiles a simulation of the costs in all fee tariff systems which are available in the future is conducted.
Further, in preparation step 43 target figure portfolios are defined. In this step, the user may define additional criteria which should be fulfilled by the optimum fee tariff system. E.g., the user may restrict the search to a fee tariff system of a certain provider. Further, the user may define a geographical region wherein the optimum fee tariff system should be offered.
Finally, in preparation step 44 the rules for determining the optimum fee tariff system are defined. In this step, the different costs simulated for all user profiles in all fee tariff systems may be compared on a percentual base in order to express the cost saving in one tariff in a relative percentual amount when compared with the actual fee tariff system.
After these preparation steps 41-44 have been conducted, the reverse simulation logics can be started and as a result of this step a selected user profile and a recommendation of a fee tariff system based on the assumption of this user profile, the user data received in steps 10, 20 is output to the user.
The user may then optionally refine the user parameters in step 50 by repeating steps 30 and 40 to further define his user profile, whereafter the best profile is sought again in step 40 using the reverse simulation logics as before.
Referring now to
In a first step 45 of the reverse simulation logics the user data, the actual fee tariff system and the monthly billing rate as input by the user and optionally further user parameters as discussed before and input in step 30 are read in.
Based on these pieces of information in step 46 a user profile is sought which is a best fit for the user data read in step 45.
In step 47 any missing parameters are completed using standard values, e.g. a fraction of short message services of 50%.
Subsequently, in step 48 an appropriate and optimum fee tariff system for the such defined user profile is sought based on predetermined rules. These pre-determined rules may as a first approach define that the optimum fee tariff system should be that one which produces the lowest costs for the user profile. Further, the rules may define that small variations in the user profile, such as small changes in the frequency of use of the types of service should not result in significant changes of the total costs for the user.
In a last step 49 the user profile which was used for the calculation of the recommendation of an optimum fee tariff system and the recommendation of an optimum fee tariff system is displayed to the user.
A first example is based on four fee tariff systems having fees according to the following table which are available for the user.
The user input can be as follows:
Based on this data a total of seven different user profiles are calculated for the actual fee tariff system A revealing the following results:
Since user profiles 2 and 3 were calculated to be near the required spent per month the one was chosen which comprises a shorter time of total service, which is user profile 2. Alternatively, the user may be asked in an additional step which user profile of the two he considers to be the best fit for him or the user may be asked for an additional input, e.g. the overall time of phone service and after having this additional input the user profile may be selected which is closer to the users entry of 100 Minutes spent per period.
In the next step for this selected user profile the four available fee tariff systems are calculated, revealing the following results:
Comparing the calculated results for the four different fee tariff systems the fee tariff system B is recommended for this particular user.
A second example is based on the same fee tariff system discussed above. The user input can be as follows:
Based on this data a total of seven different user profiles are calculated for the actual fee tariff system B revealing the following results:
Since only user profile 5 was calculated to be near the required spent per month of the user it was chosen without considering the 250 Minutes entry by the user.
In the next step for this selected user profile the four available fee tariff systems are calculated, revealing the following results:
Comparing the calculated results for the four different fee tariff systems the fee tariff system D is recommended for this particular user.
It should be understood that the present invention as described above can be implemented in the form of control logic using computer software in a modular or integrated manner. Based on the disclosure and teachings provided herein, a person of ordinary skill in the art will know and appreciate other ways and/or methods to implement the present invention using hardware and a combination of hardware and software.
Any of the software components or functions described in this application, may be implemented as software code to be executed by a processor using any suitable computer language such as, for example, Java, C++ or Perl using, for example, conventional or object-oriented techniques. The software code may be stored as a series of instructions, or commands on a computer readable medium, such as a random access memory (RAM), a read only memory (ROM), a magnetic medium such as a hard-drive or a floppy disk, or an optical medium such as a CD-ROM. Any such computer readable medium may reside on or within a single computational apparatus, and may be present on or within different computational apparatuses within a system or network. A typical computer apparatus may comprise a processor, memory, input devices and output devices all operatively coupled together. Suitable output devices include displays such as LCDs, and suitable input devices may include keyboards, mice, etc.
The above description is illustrative and is not restrictive. Many variations of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon review of the disclosure. The scope of the invention should, therefore, be determined not with reference to the above description, but instead should be determined with reference to the pending claims along with their full scope or equivalents.
One or more features from any embodiment may be combined with one or more features of any other embodiment without departing from the scope of the invention.
A recitation of “a”, “an” or “the” is intended to mean “one or more” unless specifically indicated to the contrary.
