Assembling and Using a Cellular Dataset for Mobile Network Analysis and Planning

In a world of open data and large-scale measurements, it is often feasible to obtain a real-world trace to fit to one's research problem. Feasible, however, does not imply simple. Taking next-generation cellular network planning as a case study, in this paper we describe a large-scale dataset, combining topology, traffic demand from call detail records, and demographic information throughout a whole country. We investigate how these aspects interact, revealing effects that are normally not captured by smaller-scale or synthetic datasets. In addition to making the resulting dataset available for download, we discuss how our experience can be generalized to other scenarios and case studies, i.e., how everyone can construct a similar dataset from publicly available information.