The Good, the Bad, and the KPIs: How to Combine Performance Metrics to Better Capture Underperforming Sectors in Mobile Networks

On the Use of Composite Indicators for Mobile Communications Network Management in Smart Sustainable Cities

“…Although we are currently immersed in the race towards Release 17 of 5G, this choice is motivated by the maturity of the technology and the simulation and availability of KPIs [26]. Note that, as pointed out in [16], the exact list of KPIs and their values in 4G or 5G are not usually available, due to their sensitive and vendor-related nature. Some signal or channel related open data sets can be found, for example, in [29][30][31].…”

“…As shown in [15], there are already architectures which allow for data normalization or aggregation towards achieving higher level metrics, which are fundamental steps in the proposed methodology. On the other hand, as described in [16], there is a need to find a flexible methodology that can deal with the fast rate of service changes and the constant technology evolution, as well as to define new user-centric KPIs that could help in linking network KPIs with the end user Quality of Experience (QoE). The Hotspot score is a current solution to rank sectors within a network, but it is really dependent on equipment vendors, operators, and the expertise built over the years.…”

“…Traditional network-centric KPIs have been used in advanced mathematical optimization problems, such as in [17], for example, where the aim is to obtain a multi-criteria based on KPIs to recover the coverage map of a cellular network. However, industry and academy have both been discussing the need for shifting from network-centric KPIs to user-centric KPIs [18], as a bridge that could help in linking KPIs with the end user Quality of Experience (QoE) [16,[19][20][21][22][23]. Reference [16] explores how to obtain an index outperforming the Hotspot score, by introducing data driven tools that could automate the current empirically-based process.…”

“…However, industry and academy have both been discussing the need for shifting from network-centric KPIs to user-centric KPIs [18], as a bridge that could help in linking KPIs with the end user Quality of Experience (QoE) [16,[19][20][21][22][23]. Reference [16] explores how to obtain an index outperforming the Hotspot score, by introducing data driven tools that could automate the current empirically-based process. In [19,20], data are gathered from the users in order to establish the correlation between the users' perception and the actual performance of the network.…”

“…In [19,20], data are gathered from the users in order to establish the correlation between the users' perception and the actual performance of the network. Note that references [16,19,20] do actually have access to massive MNO data. In [21], radio KPIs are combined with user end-to-end performance metrics by introducing the mean opinion score (MOS).…”