Phone Plan - Brainingcamp

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Data Analysis

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Data Analysis (discover)
The points on the graph represent the number of calls made by time of day. By drawing a straight line that is as close as possible to all the points, called a line of best fit, or trend line, you can determine whether there is a relationship between the two quantities. If all the points are close to the trend line, then the number of calls has a strong correlation to the time of day. If all the points are far from the trend line, then correlation between the two quantities is weak. A trend line that increases from left to right indicates that the number of calls increases as the day goes by. This is a positive correlation. A trend line that decreases from left to right indicates that the number of calls decreases as the day goes by. This is a negative correlation. Move the points on the graph and observe the affect on the trend line and the relationship between calls and the time of day.

Related Concepts

Linear Functions, Mean, Median, Mode, Scatter Plot, Slope of a Line

Fun Facts

Cell phone companies offer many plans with different amounts of included minutes and messages, different base prices, and different costs for going over the number of included minutes and messages. Companies carefully design their plans to earn the most amount of money, not necessarily the most number of customers. To do this, they analyze data from cell phone users and calculate averages to find a single value that is typical for different groups of customers. They also use linear functions to represent the relationships between the base price, included minutes, and overage rate to help decide how to set the amounts for each plan.