Ticketing mobile call failures based on geolocated event data

• US 8,666,390 B2
• Filed: 08/29/2011
• Issued: 03/04/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/29/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Mobility II LLC (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Mobility II LLC (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Meredith, Sheldon, Austin, Mark, Hilliard, Brandon
• Primary Examiner(s): Patel, Nimesh
• Assistant Examiner(s): VU, QUOC THAI NGOC
• Application Number:
  US13/220,083
• Publication Number:
  US 20130053023A1
• Time in Patent Office: 918 Days
• Field of Search: 455/466, 455/456.1, 455/404.2, 455/422.1, 455/423, 455/424
• US Class Current: 455/423
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/08 Testing, supervising or monitoring using real traffic

Abstract

Providing for identifying and ticketing mobile network communication errors according to geographic position of the errors is described herein. By way of example, communication errors, such as dropped calls, can be tracked and recorded as a function of position of a mobile terminal affected by a dropped call. A number of these errors within a given location is compared with historic error data to determine statistically anomalous instances of communication errors. Upon identifying such an anomaly, an error ticket can be generated that identifies a geographic region associated with the error. Particularly, the geographic region can be independent of radio access network infrastructure, which is conventionally used as a means of locating events within a mobile network. A geographic error ticket can, in some aspects of the subject disclosure, facilitate discovery and troubleshooting of errors that originate at least in part from unknown or unanticipated sources.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

a memory to store computer-executable instructions; and

a processor communicatively connected to the memory that facilitates execution of the computer-executable instructions to perform operations, comprising;

storing instances of communication error associated with a mobile network including a set of network devices and respective geographic positions of user equipment devices affected by the instances of communication error;

comparing contemporaneous instances of the instances of communication error with stored historic data of historic instances of communication error to identify a deviation condition, defined by a function, between the contemporaneous instances and the historic instances of communication error;

determining a geographic area for the deviation condition defined independently from base station infrastructure positioning information of the mobile network;

referencing a base station error ticketing system to retrieve base station error ticketing data indicative of whether the base station error ticketing system has identified a base station error pertinent to the geographic area in response to the deviation condition being identified;

engaging a geographic error ticketing system for generating repair ticket data representative of a repair ticket in response to the deviation condition being identified and in response to the base station error ticketing data being indicative of the base station error ticketing system having not identified the base station error pertinent to the geographic area; and

canceling or delaying the generating the repair ticket data representative of the repair ticket at least in part in response to the base station error ticketing data being indicative of the base station error ticketing system not having identified the base station error pertinent to the geographic area.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise identifying the geographic area to be experiencing a service outage in response to identifying the deviation condition for a subset of the contemporaneous instances of communication error.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the operations further comprise identifying the base station error as pertinent to the geographic area at least in part based on proximity of the base station error to the geographic area.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the instances of communication error comprise respective dropped calls affecting the user equipment devices.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise characterizing the geographic area served by the mobile network as set of grid bins defined by a grid of discrete and contiguous two-dimensional shapes, wherein respective shapes of the discrete and contiguous two-dimensional shapes represent respective subsets of the geographic area having respective known locations.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the operations further comprise locating the user equipment devices within the geographic area of the mobile network and facilitating storage by respective user equipment devices on behalf of the system.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the locating is determinative of respective positions of the respective user equipment devices within a geographic resolution of approximately one grid bin of the set of grid bins.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the respective positions of the user equipment devices are stored in association with respective grid bins of the set of grid bins in which the locating the user equipment devices determines the respective positions of the respective user equipment devices.

9. The system of claim 5, wherein grid bins of the set of grid bins located within a region of the mobile network are mapped to respective geographic areas having sizes that are determined from population densities of mobile terminals within the region, and wherein different regions, including the region, of different population densities have respective grid bins of differing sizes.

10. The system of claim 5, wherein grid bins of the set of grid bins are about 100 square meters in a first region with a first population density of a first set of mobile terminals, about 300 square meters in a second region with a second population density of a second set of mobile terminals, and about 500 square meters in a third region with a third population density of a third set of mobile terminals.

11. The system of claim 5, wherein the operations further comprise:

aggregating the instances of communication error within a cluster of grid bins of the set of grid bins determined to be near a target grid bin; and

assigning an aggregated number of the instances to the target grid bin.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the aggregating includes selecting a size of the cluster of grid bins determined to achieve a statistically significant number of the instances of communication error for the target grid bin.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the cluster of the grid bins is an irregular shape near the target grid bin reflecting a non-uniform mobile terminal density population in a target geographic area of the target grid bin.

14. A method, comprising:

processing data, by a system including a processor, related to radio interface failures pertaining to a mobile network within subsets of a geographic area associated with the mobile network;

identifying, by the system, an increase in contemporaneous radio interface failures of the radio interface failures relative to historic data within the subsets of the geographic area;

determining, by the system, at least one of the subsets of the geographic area most pertinent to the increase in contemporaneous radio interface failures;

retrieving, by referencing a base station error ticketing system, base station error ticketing data indicative of whether a network infrastructure failure pertinent to the at least one of the subsets of the geographic area has been identified by the base station error ticketing system;

issuing, by the system, a repair ticket notification for the at least one of the subsets of the geographic area in response to identification of a deviation in the contemporaneous radio interface failures and the historic data for the subset of the geographic area, and in response to the base station repair ticketing system having identified the network infrastructure failure pertinent to the at least one of the subsets of the geographic area; and

canceling or delaying, by the system, of the issuing the repair ticket notification at least in part in response to the base station repair ticketing system not having identified the network infrastructure failure pertinent to the at least one of the subsets of the geographic area.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising receiving and storing the instances of communication error and geographic positions of the instances multiple times.

16. The system of claim 15, further comprising storing the instances of communication error and the geographic positions for respective predefined periods corresponding to the instances, and characterizing stored data as a function of hour and day received.

17. The system of claim 15, further comprising comparing contemporaneous instances of communication error of the instances with historic data in time periods and geographic areas defined as similar to instance time periods and instance geographic areas in which the contemporaneous instances of communication error are observed, to facilitate identifying the deviation condition.

18. A tangible computer readable device comprising computer-executable instructions that, in response to execution, cause a system including a processor to perform operations, comprising:

processing data related to radio interface failures and geographic locations of the radio interface failures pertaining to a mobile network;

identifying an increase in contemporaneous radio interface failures of the radio interface failures relative to historic data within discrete subsets of a geographic area served by network devices of the mobile network;

determining at least one of the discrete subsets of the geographic area most pertinent to the increase in contemporaneous radio interface failures;

referencing a base station repair ticketing system to retrieve base station error ticketing data indicative of whether a network infrastructure failure pertinent to the at least one of the discrete subsets of the geographic area has been identified by the base station repair ticketing system;

issuing a repair notification for the at least one of the discrete subsets of the geographic area in response to identification of a deviation in the contemporaneous radio interface failures and the historic data for the at least one discrete subset of the geographic area, and in response to the base station repair ticketing system having identified the network infrastructure failure pertinent to the at least one of the discrete subsets of the geographic area; and

canceling or delaying the issuing of the repair notification for the subset of the subsets of the geographic area at least in part in response to the base station repair ticketing system not having identified the network infrastructure failure pertinent to the at least one of the discrete subsets of the geographic area.

19. The tangible computer readable device of claim 18, wherein the operations further comprise:

characterizing the geographic locations as a set of grid bins defined as subsets of a grid of discrete and contiguous two-dimensional shapes, wherein grid bins of the set of grid bins located within a region of the mobile network are mapped to respective geographic areas having sizes that are determined from population densities of mobile terminals within the region, and wherein different regions having differing population densities have differing grid bin sizes.