Study finds solution for call-drops

With call drops being a common problem for mobile phone users in the country, a joint study by researchers from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and the University of Pennsylvania, USA, has concluded that telecom companies can not only reduce call drop rates, but make higher profits by pooling their resources.

The researchers used the concept of cooperative games under Game theory, a field of study under mathematics that deals with the analysis of strategies of decision making when in competition.

Resource pooling not only allows efficient usage of bandwidth, but also leads to reduced power consumption and lower call drop rates. If such resource pooling is permitted, and the revenue generated can be shared by operators A and B so that they actually make more revenue. Then it is a “win-win” for the subscribers and the operators, said a release from IISc.

Based on mathematical models built by the researchers, it was found that, if all the operators formed a coalition and thereby pooling their resources, their subscribers, sharing the total revenue, then all the operators would reap greater profits while at the same time the users would obtain better services. However, if a set of operators quit the coalition, then at least one of them is sure to do worse than if it remained in the coalition.

“Obviously, fair sharing of the aggregate payoffs has practical obstacles, such as the operators may not report their true expenditure and earnings. The research also shows that operator coalitions can be beneficial to all the players even if they do not share their earned payoffs,” the release added.