Executive summary
The world is changing, barriers are falling, the usage of the Ethereum Blockchain and Smart Contracts is removing the middle-men and reducing costs across several industries. Banks are changing the way they do transactions while the industry is reducing complexity in manufacturing, supply chain and logistics. This white paper describes the DENT Exchange we are building: the transparent marketplace for selling, buying and donating mobile data packages.
Mobile data is the next commodity to be liberated
Mobile data access is becoming an essential human need, as much as hot water and electricity. However, according to GSMA, in 2016 still less than half of the world’s population uses mobile data. For data users, usage vary vastly across geographies, which shows the huge potential to be unlocked. Reasons are, besides network availability and handset affordability, the perceived high cost of data, which varies from below 1 USD / GB to well above 10 USD / GB between operators and regions for domestic usage. Furthermore, operators are locking-in customers with rigid data offerings that are made to expire when unused within a given time, which lead to even higher prices / GB that customers effectively pay. As a consequence of the customer lock-in, data usage abroad can become prohibitively expensive with prices / GB in the hundreds or thousands of USD. All this generates billions of dollars profit for operators but inhibits to unlock the full potential of mobile data.
Three Disruption Megatrends on Mobile Operator Business that DENT is addressing
Liberation of Mobile Data. DENT enables a “Data Sharing Economy” where users are able to freely buy, sell and donate their mobile data, from any user to any user. The DENT-Exchange acts as horizontal marketplace for trading of mobile data like on a stock market. The DENT Token will be the world-wide currency for Mobile Data between Telcos and the user community.
Disruption of international Roaming. DENT facilitates the removal of data roaming cost drivers, such as expensive routings between Telcos. For example, with local data break-out, the foreign telco terminates the user traffic directly to the internet, instead of routing the pay-load to the home telco.
Facilitation of mobile data purchase. DENT enables automated purchase capability of data packages for consumers and iOT devices. The user always gets the best price from the most suitable operator in his region, without having to worry about buying too much or too little data. DENT driven liberation of the mobile data market towards an open marketplace DENT will be the global exchange for mobile data where - in the final scale - the world’s mobile data is sold, bought or donated, just like other commodities such as currencies are traded today. DENT will make data pricing transparent, and through automated bidding increases efficiency of purchase, just like spot markets and mobile advertising today.
DENT Tokens will be the global currency for the exchange of mobile data packages. The possibility of exchanging a package to a more suitable one, especially in the advent of eSIMs will allow the use of multiple operators on a single phone will drive telcos to compete.