A mobile network planning tool based on data analytics

Abstract

Planning future mobile networks entails multiple challenges due to the high complexity of the network to be managed. Beyond 4G and 5G networks are expected to be characterized by a high densification of nodes and heterogeneity of layers, applications, and Radio Access Technologies (RAT). In this context, a network planning tool capable of dealing with this complexity is highly convenient. The objective is to exploit the information produced by and already available in the network to properly deploy, configure, and optimise network nodes. This work presents such a smart network planning tool that exploits Machine Learning (ML) techniques. The proposed approach is able to predict the Quality of Service (QoS) experienced by the users based on the measurement history of the network. We select Physical Resource Block (PRB) per Megabit (Mb) as our main QoS indicator to optimise, since minimizing this metric allows offering the same service to users by consuming less resources, so, being more cost-effective. Two cases of study are considered in order to evaluate the performance of the proposed scheme, one to smartly plan the small cell deployment in a dense indoor scenario and a second one to timely face a detected fault in a macrocell network.