Subject: combinatorial auction - jan 11 mtg background
- - - - - forwarded by greg woulfe / enron communications on 12 / 28 / 00 09 : 58 am - - - - -
chonawee supatgiat @ enron
12 / 22 / 00 05 : 08 pm
to : stinson gibner / hou / ect @ ect , greg woulfe / enron communications @ enron
communications
cc :
subject : combinatorial auction
stinson and greg ,
i have read the paper " combinatorial auction with multiple winners for
universal service " from richard steinberg and frank kelly . they propose a
combinatorial auction which is an auction for multiple items that allows
bidders to realize their synergies on combinations of items . the
combinatorial auction is appropriated for bandwidth commodity because most
bidders in the market have synergies on the combination of items . for
example , if we want to get bandwidth between boston and dc , we would bid for
boston - ny and ny - dc . it will be valuable to us only if we won both links . if
we won only one link , it will be useless .
in the paper , they propose the auctioning method but their method has not
been tested or validated yet . i have not checked their proposition
mathematically but their paper was published in management science so i think
it should be all right . i will look at it in more details and let you know .
anyhow , there are also other combinatorial auctions that are actually used ,
for example , the alberta government ' s ppa auction that enron canada was
participated 3 - 4 months ago .
based on our long position on bandwidth , auction and exchange might be a good
channel to dispose our unused ( or unsold ) bandwidth . i know there is not much
demand in the market . but if we open a combinatorial auction or exchange , we
might be able to increase our market share . ( by taking demand from our
competitors ) . i believe , at the moment , there are no bandwidth exchanges that
allow " combinatorial " bids . if we are the first one to do it , we might
improve our sale channel and gain some market share . ( note : auction - > one
seller and many buyers : exchange - > many sellers and many buyers . )
moreover , i think auctioning the unsold bandwidth will not hurt us because we
cannot sell them anyway . in addition , we ourselves can be a dummy bidder in
the system and bid in the auction . if the current wining bid is too low , we
can just over - bid it and keep the product . this way , we can indirectly put a
reserve price on the products .
let ' s meet sometime in the first week of january .
- chonawee