Journal · 2024
Architecture, Performance, and Usability of Mobile Cellular Network Monitoring Applications for Data-Driven Analysis
Abstract
Network monitoring is essential for operators to review and optimize network behaviour, and to troubleshoot any issues that arise. With the adoption of unlicensed band and spectrum-sharing technologies, conventional optimization techniques are no longer feasible. As cellular networks grow in complexity, data-driven solutions are becoming increasingly central to ensuring optimal network performance, reliability, and user experience. Recent cellular research has focused on data-driven analysis and optimization to ensure high Quality of Service in a cellular network. However, the biggest challenge for such work is data collection at scale from sophisticated and reliable network monitoring tools. This work bridges a gap in cellular network literature with a thorough review of cellular network monitoring tools. We rigorously test and review eleven applications that are popularly used to collect information on cellular networks. We understand, analyze, and critique their architecture to assess their reliability. We share insights on their performance and ease of use. Most importantly, we analyze the ability of applications to collect accurate cellular network data at scale. We also review recent literature on cellular network monitoring and analysis after carefully selecting 32 papers relevant to the topic.
Research Note
Operating a cellular network requires observing how it actually behaves, since neither optimization nor troubleshooting is possible without that. The arrival of unlicensed band and spectrum-sharing technologies has made the radio environment dynamic enough that conventional optimization techniques no longer suffice, which has increased the weight placed on data-driven analysis.
The practical obstacle is collecting that data at scale. Research in this area commonly relies on monitoring applications running on commodity smartphones to record radio conditions, yet how reliable the values these applications report actually are, and whether they hold up as collection scales, has received little scrutiny.
This work fills that gap with a thorough review of cellular network monitoring tools. Eleven widely used applications were rigorously tested and reviewed, their architectures analysed and critiqued in order to assess reliability, and their performance and ease of use documented. The central question throughout is whether an application can collect accurate cellular network data at scale. The paper also reviews recent literature on cellular network monitoring and analysis through 32 carefully selected papers.
It is a study that turns scepticism on the measurement instruments themselves, addressing a step that comes before any data-driven analysis can be trusted.
