Evolved Intelligence has launched a dynamic tariffing system called Intelligent Pricing for pre-pay mobile users. The system calculates the price elasticity for different groups of mobile users at different times through the day. This information is then used in conjunction with capacity and demand availability data, and a number of other factors, to generate a dynamic tariff. This dynamically-changing tariff is notified to handsets by cell broadcast. The result, the company says, has been to boost ARPU by between 5 per cent and 14 per cent in the networks that have rolled out the system.

“The Intelligent Pricing system observes subscribers responses to changing tariffs. It then calculates the price point at which overall revenue is maximised,” explains Robin Burton, head of marketing at Evolved Intelligence. “This method of micro-targeting pricing to specific cells and specific time segments maximises ARPU increase.”

The company says that the observed ARPU increases are driven by a number of factors, in addition to the optimisation of the tariff on the price elasticity curve. “The application of intelligent pricing tends to reduce SIM swapping,” says Burton. “Because the tariff changes so frequently, it is difficult for subscribers to tell whether they would be better off using another network. This means that business is won from competing networks. Also, because Intelligent Pricing boosts the number of calls and texts from subscribers in the scheme, it also increases the number of return calls and texts from subscribers outside of the scheme. And because the tariffs are also based on capacity availability, Intelligent Pricing also shapes traffic, reducing demand at peak times. This reduces the traffic pressure on the network, thereby improving quality of experience and delaying the need for expenditure on improvements.”

Intelligent Pricing connects seamlessly, without needing any changes to pre-pay platforms. The company says this makes it ideal for multi-prepay vendor environments, and that it also reduces the cost and complexity of implementation.