Method for Mobile Network Coverage Experience Analysis and Monitoring

• US 20120071157A1
• Filed: 05/05/2011
• Published: 03/22/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/05/2010
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Vodafone IP Licensing Limited (Vodafone Group PLC)
• Original Assignee: Vodafone IP Licensing Limited (Vodafone Group PLC)
• Inventors: MARKOULIDAKIS, Yannis
• Application Number:
  US13/101,479
• Publication Number:
  US 20120071157A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/423
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/08 Testing, supervising or monitoring using real traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services

Abstract

In a telecommunications network including a plurality of mobile terminals, a system and method of providing an indication of network coverage in relation to at least one of the plurality of mobile terminals, the method and system being configured to: determine the occurrence of incoming call events in relation to the at least one terminal; record the occurrences together with an identity of at least one applicable terminal, a location and/or a time associated with the communication event; and analyse the recorded incoming call event data, particularly unreachable terminal events, to determine an indication of experienced network coverage for each of the at least one terminal. In this way, an indication of actual user experience can be determined, which is usable in indicatively treating customer complaints, making network improvements and analysing mobile terminal performance.

Claims

1. In a telecommunications network including a plurality of mobile terminals, a method of providing an indication of network coverage, the method including:

determining the occurrence of incoming call events in relation to at least one of the plurality of mobile terminals;

recording a result of each incoming call event, together with at least one call property; and

analysing the recorded incoming call data to determine an indication of experienced network coverage for the at least one terminal, a given terminal type, a given location and/or a given time period.

2. The method of claim 1 further including determining the result of each incoming call event to be recorded from at least the following options:

a) a successful call including a successfully established call and/or successful terminating call attempt;

b) an unanswered paging;

c) called terminal busy;

d) called terminal detached from network; and

e) a failed incoming call due to an expired periodic location registration update timer.

3. The method of claim 1 further including determining the at least one call property to be recorded from at least the following options:

an identity of the called party;

a time period applicable to the call;

a location applicable to the called party;

an identity of the terminal type for the called party;

the mobile network of the calling and the called party.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the analysis of the recorded data includes determining an indication of the network coverage experienced by a given mobile terminal or mobile terminal type (P_cov—

_act) according to the following equation;

P<sub>cov—

act</sub>≈

1−

P<sub>out—

cov/swn</sub>

where;

5. The method of claim 4 further including averaging the equation over one or more given time periods in order to achieve statistical stability.

6. The method of claim 4 further including filtering out repeated calls to unreachable mobile terminals within a predetermined time threshold.

7. The method of claim 4 further including determining N_U—

_PAG, N<sub>E—

PLR</sub>, N<sub>call—

in</sub> and N_swf from;

a) event counters on a per terminal basis;

or

b) event counters on a location basis.

8. The method of claim 4 further including analysing the data to perform at least one of the following applications:

identify network coverage problems in given areas or at given times;

handle customer complains related to network coverage;

benchmark mobile terminal performance versus coverage experience;

benchmark different mobile networks versus the offered network coverage experience.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the analysis of the recorded data includes determining an indication of the network coverage experienced in a given area (A) during time period (T) using the following equation:

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the analysis of the recorded data includes determining an indication of the network coverage experienced in a given area (A) during time period (T) according to the following equation:

11. In a telecommunications network including a plurality of mobile terminals, a method of providing an indication of network coverage in relation to at least one of the plurality of mobile terminals, the method including:

determining the initiation of a call set up procedure from the at least one terminal;

monitoring the duration of the call setup procedure; and

identifying a failed call attempt when the call setup procedure duration exceeds a predetermined threshold.

12. The method of claim 11 further including, where a failed call attempt is identified, using the timed set up duration to determine a reason for the failed call such as an unanswered paging event.

13. The method of claim 11 further including using the failed call set up events to obtain an indication of network coverage for a given region, a given user terminal, a given terminal type and/or a given time period.

14. The method of claim 11 further including, where the call set procedure is not successful, and a reason cannot be determined from the content of signalling messages, then:

where the timed set up equals or exceeds the threshold, the failed communication is determined to be due to an unanswered paging event; and

/or

where the timed set up is less than the threshold, the failed communication is determined to be due to other reasons, such as the called terminal being detached/busy.

15. The method of claim 11 further including:

determining successful call set up events and busy calling party events from the content of signalling messages; and

additionally using the successful call set up events to obtain the indication of network coverage.

16. The method of claim 11 further including:

using the unsuccessful call set up events in order to obtain the indication of network coverage for a plurality of different networks; and

comparing the indications for the different networks.

17. In a telecommunications network including a plurality of mobile terminals, a network element configured to provide an indication of network coverage in relation one or more of the plurality of mobile terminals, a given mobile terminal type, a given location area and/or a given time period the network element configured to:

determine the occurrence of incoming call events in relation to at least one of the plurality of mobile terminals;

record a result of each incoming call event, together with at least one call property;

analyse the recorded incoming call data to determine an indication of experienced network coverage for the one or more mobile terminal, a given terminal model type, a given location and/or a given time period.

18. The network element of claim 17 further configured to analyse the recorded data by determining the indication of the network coverage using the following equation:

19. The network element of claim 18 further configured to use the equation to determine the actual network coverage for:

i) the one or more mobile terminals during a time period T

ii) the given mobile terminal type during a time period T; and

/or

iii) the given location area A.

20. The network element of claim 17 further configured to analyse the recorded data by determining an indication of the network coverage experienced in a given area (A) during time period (T) according to the following equation:

21. The network element of claim 17 further configured to use the data analysis to identify network coverage problems in given areas or at given times.