System and method for gathering data from wireless communications networks

• US 20030064722A1
• Filed: 08/28/2002
• Published: 04/03/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 03/17/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nielsen Company (US), LLC
• Original Assignee: Telephia Incorporated (RR Donnelley & Sons Company)
• Inventors: Heidohrn, Mark, Frangione, Tom, Oyler, John, Peyrat, Alan
• Granted Patent: US 7,013,136 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/424
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/00 Supervisory, monitoring or testing arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/08 Testing, supervising or monitoring using real traffic

Abstract

A system and method for gathering data from wireless communication networks, the wireless communication network including a plurality of cell sites, mobile subscriber units, and a mobile telephone switching office. The data gathering system comprises a plurality of data gathering nodes and a control center. Each data gathering node comprises multiple receivers, with each receiver gathering data from a different wireless communication network. Stored data at the control center is processed to generate marketing information on each wireless communication network.

Claims

1. A system for gathering data from a plurality of wireless communication networks, said system comprising:

a plurality of data gathering nodes, each data gathering node of said plurality of data gathering nodes comprising;

an antenna system; and

a plurality of receivers tuned to gather data from the plurality of wireless communication networks, each receiver of said plurality of receivers coupled to said antenna; and

a control center coupled to said plurality of data gathering nodes, said control center processing data received from said plurality of data gathering nodes.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein each data gathering node of said plurality of data gathering nodes further comprises a local processor and storage device, coupled to said plurality of receivers.

3. The system of claim 1 further comprising a network linkage coupled between said plurality of receivers and said control center, said network linkage sending stored data from said plurality of receivers to said control center.

4. The system of claim 3 wherein said network linkage comprises a modem.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein said plurality of receivers comprise N receivers, where N is an integer greater than one and equal to the number of wireless communication networks from which data is being gathered, and wherein each receiver at a data gathering node gathers data from a wireless communication network that is different from other wireless communication networks from which data is gathered by other receivers of said data gathering node.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the control center further comprises a relational database for storing data gathered by said plurality of data gathering nodes.

7. The system of claim 6 wherein said relational database utilizes event type, cell location, market location, carrier location, and frequency band relational tables to cross-reference index value meanings in a user information table for each event.

8. The system of claim 1 further comprising an offline storage media for archiving and backup of the data gathered by said plurality of data gathering nodes.

9. The system of claim 1 further comprising a data mining application that processes the data gathered by said plurality of data gathering nodes to produce marketing and usage characterization information useful for wireless communication network service providers to determine their relative strengths and weaknesses to other wireless communication network service providers.'"'"'

10. The system of claim 9 wherein said marketing and usage characterization information produced comprises information on subscriber share, call share, number of new subscribers, and number of churning subscribers for each wireless communication network of the plurality of wireless communication networks.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein said control center transmits instructions modifying receiver data gathering settings to each receiver of said plurality of receivers.

12. In a plurality of wireless communication networks, each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks comprising a layout of cell sites divided into location areas that overlap the cell layout of each other wireless communication network in a given geographic area, the system of claim 1 wherein:

at least one data gathering node of said plurality of data gathering nodes is placed in a different location area of each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks allowing it to gather data from a group of cell sites; and

each data gathering node gathers data for a time period from a first cell in a cell group of each wireless communication network, then gathers data for a time period from a second cell in a cell group of each wireless communication network, and then gathers data for a time period from each cell in a cell group of each wireless communication network until data has been gathered for all cells in a cell group of each wireless communication network.

13. The system of claim 1 wherein said data gathering nodes are fixed, transportable, or a combination of fixed and transportable.

14. The system of claim 1 wherein each receiver of said plurality of receivers encrypts portions of the data gathered by each receiver of said plurality of receivers into unique subscriber identifiers to protect subscriber identities.

15. The system of claim 1 wherein each receiver of said plurality of receivers generates a unique subscriber identifier for each different subscriber from the RF fingerprint of the signal received.

16. The system of claim 1 wherein each receiver of said plurality of receivers filters the data that said receiver has gathered to remove private or extraneous data before sending the data to said control center.

17. The system of claim 2 wherein said local processor encrypts portions of the data gathered by said plurality of receivers into unique subscriber identifiers prior to storage at said storage device.

18. A system for gathering data from a plurality of wireless communication networks, said system comprising:

A means for gathering data from a plurality of geographic locations in a plurality of wireless communication networks, said means comprising;

means for receiving electromagnetic energy at each cell group of said plurality of cell groups; and

means for gathering data from a plurality of wireless communication networks at each cell group of said plurality of cell groups; and

means for storing the data gathered from said plurality of geographic locations.

19. The system of claim 18 further comprising a means for processing the data gathered from said plurality of geographic locations to produce marketing and usage characterization information.

20. A method for gathering data from a plurality of wireless communication networks comprising the steps of:

deploying a plurality of data gathering nodes at various geographic locations in a plurality of wireless communication networks;

gathering data at said plurality of data gathering nodes from each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks; and

processing the data at a control center.

21. The method of claim 20 further comprising the step of using a data mining application to process the data gathered by said plurality of data gathering nodes to produce marketing and usage characterization information.

22. The method of claim 20, wherein said step of deploying a plurality of data gathering nodes at various geographic locations in a plurality of wireless communication networks comprises the steps of placing at least one data gathering node of said plurality of data gathering nodes in each location area of each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein said step of gathering data at said plurality of data gathering nodes comprises the step of at each data gathering node of said plurality of data gathering nodes, simultaneously gathering data from each location area of each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks.

24. The method of claim 22, wherein said step of gathering data at said plurality of data gathering nodes comprises the steps of:

at each data gathering node of said plurality of data gathering nodes, employing a sampling algorithm to gather data from a cell group of each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks;

simultaneously employing said sampling algorithm at all data gathering nodes of said plurality of data gathering nodes to gather data from each location area of said plurality of wireless communication networks.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein said sampling algorithm to gather data from a cell group of each wireless communication network, comprising the steps of:

monitoring the channel assignment of a first cell base station for a time period for each wireless communication network;

changing the monitoring frequency to monitor the channel assignment of a second cell base station for a time period for each wireless communication network; and

changing the monitoring frequency to monitor the channel assignment of the base station of each of N cells for a time period for each wireless communication network, where N equals the number of cells in each cell group of the data gathering node and is not necessarily equal for each wireless communication network.

26. The method of claim 20, wherein all of the cells of said plurality of wireless communication networks is sampled.

27. The method of claim 21, wherein said step of processing the data at said control center to produce marketing information on each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks comprises calculating the share of subscribers for each wireless communication network for a given time period.

28. The method of claim 27, wherein said method of calculating the share of subscribers for each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks for a given time period comprises:

sorting through the data gathered from each data gathering node of said plurality of data gathering nodes during the given time period and counting a base number of different unique subscriber identifiers for each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks;

extrapolating the base number of different unique subscriber identifiers for each wireless communication network to an adjusted number of unique subscriber identifiers;

summing the number of adjusted unique subscriber identifiers counted for each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks to produce a total number of subscribers for said plurality of wireless communication networks; and

dividing the number of adjusted unique subscriber identifiers for each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks by said total number of subscribers for said plurality of wireless communication networks.

29. The method of claim 21, wherein said step of processing the data at said control center to produce marketing information on each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks comprises calculating the number of new subscribers each wireless communication network added during a given time period.

30. The method of claim 29, wherein said step of calculating the number of new subscribers for each wireless communication network added during a given time period comprises:

sorting through the data gathered from each data gathering node of said plurality of data gathering nodes during the given time period and generating a list of unique subscriber identifiers;

sorting through the data gathered from each data gathering node of said plurality of data gathering nodes during a prior time period and generating a list of unique subscriber identifiers;

comparing the list of unique subscriber identifiers for the given time period to the prior time period and counting the number of new unique subscriber identifiers that appear in the given time period but not the prior time period; and

extrapolating said number of new unique subscriber identifiers to an adjusted number of new unique subscriber identifiers.

31. The method of claim 21, wherein said step of processing the data at said control center to produce marketing information on each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks comprises calculating the number of churning subscribers who canceled service for each wireless communication network during a given time period.

32. The method of claim 31, wherein said step of calculating the number of churning subscribers who canceled service for each wireless communication network during a given time period comprises:

sorting through the data gathered from each data gathering node of said plurality of data gathering nodes during a prior time period and generating a list of unique subscriber identifiers;

sorting through the data gathered from each data gathering node of said plurality of data gathering nodes during the given time period and generating a list of unique subscriber identifiers;

comparing the list of unique subscriber identifiers for the prior time period to the given time period and counting the number of churning unique subscriber identifiers that appear in the prior time period but not the given time period; and

extrapolating said number of churning subscribers to an adjusted number of churning subscribers.

33. The method of claim 21, wherein said step of processing the data at said control center to produce marketing information on each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks comprises calculating the share of calls made by subscribers of each wireless communication network for a given time period.

34. The method of claim 33, wherein said step of calculating the share of subscriber calls made for each wireless communication network for a given time period comprises:

sorting through the data gathered from each data gathering node of said plurality of data gathering nodes during the given time period and counting the number of traffic channel assignments made by each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks;

extrapolating said number of counted traffic channel assignments to a total number of subscriber calls for the given time period for each wireless communication network;

summing the total number of subscriber calls extrapolated for the given time period for each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks to produce a total number of subscribers calls for said plurality of wireless communication networks; and

dividing said total number of subscriber calls for each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks by said total number of calls for said plurality of wireless communication networks.

35. The method of claim 34 wherein the number of traffic channel assignments counted does not include traffic channel assignments made to roaming subscribers.

36. The method of claim 21, wherein said step of processing the data at said control center to produce marketing information on each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks comprises calculating the share of roamers of each wireless communication network for a given time period.

37. The method of claim 36, wherein said step of calculating the share of roamers for each wireless communication network for a given time period comprises:

sorting through the data gathered from each data gathering node of said plurality of data gathering nodes during the given time period and counting a base number of roamers for each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks;

extrapolating the base number of roamers for each wireless communication network to an adjusted number of roamers;

summing the number of adjusted roamers for each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks to produce a total number of roamers for said plurality of wireless communication networks; and

dividing the adjusted number of roamers for each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks by said total number of subscribers for said plurality of wireless communication networks.

38. The method of claim 21, wherein said step of processing the data at said control center to produce marketing information on each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks comprises profiling the quality of subscribers for each wireless communication network.

39. The method of claim 38 wherein said type of subscribers comprise new, churning, and base subscribers.

40. The method of claim 38, wherein said step of profiling the quality of subscribers for each wireless communication network for a given time period comprises:

sorting through the data gathered from each data gathering node and identifying the different unique subscriber identifiers corresponding to the type of subscriber to be profiled for each wireless communication network;

counting the number of traffic channel assignments made to each said unique subscriber identifier;

counting the total number of said different unique subscriber identifiers for all wireless communication networks;

dividing said total number for all wireless communication networks into subunits according to the number of traffic channel assignments made; and

for each subunit, calculating the market share percentage of number of subscribers for each wireless communication network in the subunit.

41. A method for gathering data at a data gathering node comprising the steps of:

scanning readable control channels and their corresponding cell site identification;

measuring the approximate signal strength of each control channel;

deciding which channels of said readable control channels data will be gathered from; and

gathering data from said channels.

42. A method for processing a data file gathered from a plurality of wireless communication networks to calculate the share of subscribers for each wireless communication network for a given time period, said method comprising the steps of:

sorting through the data gathered from each data gathering node of said plurality of data gathering nodes during the given time period and counting a base number of different unique subscriber identifiers for each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks;

extrapolating the base number of different unique subscriber identifiers for each wireless communication network to an adjusted number of unique subscriber identifiers;

summing the number of adjusted unique subscriber identifiers counted for each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks to produce a total number of subscribers for said plurality of wireless communication networks; and

dividing the number of adjusted unique subscriber identifiers for each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks by said total number of subscribers for said plurality of wireless communication networks.

43. A method for processing a data file gathered from a plurality of wireless communication networks to calculate the number of new subscribers each wireless communication network added during a given time period, said method comprising the steps of:

sorting through the data gathered from each data gathering node of said plurality of data gathering nodes during the given time period and generating a list of unique subscriber identifiers;

sorting through the data gathered from each data gathering node of said plurality of data gathering nodes during a prior time period and generating a list of unique subscriber identifiers;

comparing the list of unique subscriber identifiers for the given time period to the prior time period and counting the number of new unique subscriber identifiers that appear in the given time period but not the prior time period; and

extrapolating said number of new unique subscriber identifiers to an adjusted number of new unique subscriber identifiers.

44. A method for processing a data file gathered from a plurality of wireless communication networks to calculate the number of churning subscribers who canceled service for each wireless communication network during a given time period, said method comprising the steps of:

sorting through the data gathered from each data gathering node of said plurality of data gathering nodes during a prior time period and generating a list of unique subscriber identifiers;

sorting through the data gathered from each data gathering node of said plurality of data gathering nodes during the given time period and generating a list of unique subscriber identifiers;

comparing the list of unique subscriber identifiers for the prior time period to the given time period and counting the number of churning unique subscriber identifiers that appear in the prior time period but not the given time period; and

extrapolating said number of churning subscribers to an adjusted number of churning subscribers.

45. A method for processing a data file gathered from a plurality of wireless communication networks to calculate the share of subscriber calls made for each wireless communication network for a given time period, said method comprising the steps of:

sorting through the data gathered from each data gathering node of said plurality of data gathering nodes during the given time period and counting the number of traffic channel assignments made by each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks;

extrapolating said number of counted traffic channel assignments to a total number of subscriber calls for the given time period for each wireless communication network;

summing the total number of subscriber calls extrapolated for the given time period for each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks to produce a total number of subscribers calls for said plurality of wireless communication networks; and

dividing said total number of subscriber calls for each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks by said total number of calls for said plurality of wireless communication networks.

46. A method for processing a data file gathered from a plurality of wireless communication networks to calculate the share of roamers for each wireless communication network for a given time period, said method comprising the steps of:

sorting through the data gathered from each data gathering node of said plurality of data gathering nodes during the given time period and counting a base number of roamers for each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks;

extrapolating the base number of roamers for each wireless communication network to an adjusted number of roamers;

summing the number of adjusted roamers for each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks to produce a total number of roamers for said plurality of wireless communication networks; and

dividing the adjusted number of roamers for each wireless communication network of said plurality of wireless communication networks by said total number of subscribers for said plurality of wireless communication networks.

47. A method for processing a data file gathered from a plurality of wireless communication networks to profile the quality of subscribers for each wireless communication network for a given time period comprises:

'"'"'

sorting through the data gathered from each data gathering node and identifying the different unique subscriber identifiers corresponding to the type of subscriber to be profiled for each wireless communication network;

counting the number of traffic channel assignments made to each said unique subscriber identifier;

counting the total number of said different unique subscriber identifiers for all wireless communication networks;

dividing said total number for all wireless communication networks into subunits according to the number of traffic channel assignments made; and

for each subunit, calculating the market share percentage of number of subscribers for each wireless communication network in the subunit.

48. The method of claim 47 wherein said type of subscribers comprise new, churning, and base subscribers.