Method and system for interactive rate plan recommender

A computer-readable storage medium containing instructions for executing, by operation of a processor, a service provider hosted method of analyzing rate plans for communication services, the method comprising:

• obtaining rate structures from a plurality of sources;
• storing the rate structures in a rate plan database;
• electronically obtaining user input data from a user;
• deriving a usage pattern from usage data for a consumer of communication services by determining, based on the user input data, whether a historical usage database reflecting prior use of communication services by the consumer of communication services is available, and
• based on the determination that the historical usage database reflecting the prior use of communication services is available, selecting the usage data from the historical usage database, and
• based on the determination that the historical usage database reflecting the prior use of communication services is not available,
• obtaining access data from the user to access a usage database and selecting the usage data from the usage database, and
• obtaining additional input data from the user to determine whether the usage data is available from the user, and based on the determination that the usage data is available from the user, obtaining the usage data from the user;
• and
• determining a set of proposed rate plans for the consumer based on the usage pattern;
• determining a type of the user;
• based on the determination that the user is a consumer type, filtering out from the set of proposed rate plans, a rate plan from a competitor of the service provider, and presenting the filtered proposed rate plans to the user;
• and
• based on the determination that the user is a representative of the service provider, presenting the set of proposed rate plans without filtering out a rate plan from a competitor of the service provider.

A service provider hosted system for analyzing rate plans for communication services, comprising:

• a web-based site server;
• a rate plan database storing rate structures for the rate plans;
• and
• a processor configured to connect to the web-based site server and the rate plan database for:
• electronically obtaining user input data from a user;
• deriving a usage pattern from usage data for a consumer of communication services;
• determining a set of proposed rate plans for the consumer based on the usage pattern;
• determining a type of the user;
• based on the determination that the user is a consumer type, filtering out from the set of proposed rate plans, a rate plan from a competitor of the service provider, and presenting the filtered proposed rate plans to the user;
• and
• based on the determination that the user is a representative of the service provider, presenting the set of proposed rate plans without filtering out a rate plan from a competitor of the service provider.