This project originated from an idea that a new marketplace could be envisioned to facilitate the wholesale exchange of cellular services. Working with collaborators, Carl Gunell and Dan Westin, an entirely new concept for frictionless exchange of wholesale services between providers was imagined and patented.
Problem
As noted in the Background section of US Patent 11330111B2:
“(The) administration of roaming of end users from one wireless network to another has created complex technical and business administration problems.
One can readily understand that this problem can only be exacerbated as more and more networks come online and provide services to end users. Manual administration and management of roaming services across hundreds or thousands (and possibly millions) of wireless networks would be time consuming and cost prohibitive.
Furthermore, agreed upon pricing of roaming services between providers of wireless networks can vary slowly between any two groups of wireless network providers and do not dynamically take into account that a cellular network is not homogenous in its value across location and time. The result of this slow-moving process is lost value opportunity for both the provider and consumer of roaming services across wireless networks. In other words, sellers are not rewarded for the unique value they may have in portions of their network and buyers may be overpaying in some cases.
Therefore, a platform that provides for an efficient, automatic and transparent creation and settlement of services between wireless service providers is needed.”
Methods
The researchers used their extensive personal experience with the current methods of exchanging and settling the cost of wholesale cellular services. In addition, the design of other marketplaces were studied. This included the work of the economist, Alvin Roth, in designing algorithms for the kidney transplant matching system, and the design of other market systems including that used by Uber for matching drivers and riders.
The researchers also studied blockchain technologies and the potential benefit that such a database technique might lend to the problem of efficient exchange of wholesale cellular service.
Results
As a result of this research, the collaborators devised a new method of efficiently processing the exchange of wholesale cellular services using blockchain techniques. The benefits of the system envisioned are the ability of counter-parties unknown to each other to securely participate in a wholesale transaction and for the system to accommodate rapidly changing economic terms which captures more value for both buyer and seller.
The work resulted in two issued patents by the USPTO: