Comparative Analysis of Online Streaming Services

A market research firm in the United States is focusing on comparing the subscription costs of two leading online streaming platforms - StreamFlix and VisionPlus. To carry out this analysis, the firm adopts a methodical approach, subscribing to various packages offered by these platforms across 10 different regions, all within the same week. The subscriptions are chosen based on a standard entertainment package, ensuring comparable services are subscribed to in each region. The costs incurred for these subscriptions are listed below, and it is hypothesized that the subscription costs for each platform follow a normal distribution with equal population variances. Provide either manual calculations or statistical software output.

a) Determine whether the samples from StreamFlix and VisionPlus are independent. Provide reasoning for your assessment.

b) Execute a hypothesis test to ascertain if there's a significant difference in the mean subscription costs between StreamFlix and VisionPlus. Employ either the critical value or p-value methods at a 5% significance level. Document the entire hypothesis testing process (including hypothesis statements, decision rule, p-value calculation, and a concluding statement with its rationale).

c) Derive and elucidate a 95% confidence interval for the difference in mean subscription costs between StreamFlix and VisionPlus.

d) Evaluate the consistency of the conclusions drawn in parts b) and c). Discuss the rationale behind your evaluation.

REGION	STREAMFLIX COST	VISIONPLUS COST
1	$ 119.25	$ 111.99
2	$ 121.32	$ 114.88
3	$ 122.34	$ 115.11
4	$ 120.14	$ 117.02
5	$ 122.19	$ 116.89
6	$ 123.71	$ 116.62
7	$ 121.72	$ 115.38
8	$ 122.42	$ 114.40
9	$ 123.63	$ 113.91
10	$ 122.44	$ 111.87