GB2618140A

GB2618140A - Methods of reporting and collecting voice call coverage data in a telecommunications network and a server, user equipment and software for performing methods

Info

Publication number: GB2618140A
Application number: GB2206291.3A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Gaber Ayman
Original assignee: Vodafone Group Services Ltd
Current assignee: Vodafone Group Services Ltd
Priority date: 2022-04-29
Filing date: 2022-04-29
Publication date: 2023-11-01
Also published as: WO2023209343A1; GB202206291D0

Abstract

A method of reporting voice call coverage data in a telecommunications network is provided. The method comprises receiving, at a destination user equipment 120, a first message comprising an indication that an attempt to establish a voice call from an originating user equipment 110 to the destination user equipment 120 was unsuccessful. The method further comprises sending, in response to the first message, a second message to a server 100, the second message comprising location data indicating a geographic location of the destination user equipment 120. In another aspect of the invention a server determines that the attempted voice call was unsuccessful.

Description

Methods of reporting and collecting voice call coverage data in a telecommunications network and a server, user equipment and software for performing the methods

Field of the invention

The present invention relates to coverage data in a telecommunications network.

Specifically, the invention relates to methods for improving methods of reporting and collecting reports in relation to failed voice call attempts.

Background

Prior art crowdsourcing systems may report data based on connected and dropped call information. The information may be collected by users' smart phones and uploaded to a server.

KR20110118958 appears to describe reporting call quality information via WiFi. However, this document only considers scenarios in which the call does connect but where the quality is poor. Scenarios in which the call does not connect to the mobile communication terminal are not considered. Moreover, KR20110118958 appears to report a location of the access point, which may be different to the location of the terminal.

KR20040100216 appears to describe a call quality management system that receives GPS location information indicating the location of a receiver (and call quality data) when a call has been disconnected or handed off.

There are therefore shortcomings in the prior art because no data is collected where a voice call could not be established to the terminating party (as a result of poor voice coverage in the location of the terminating party).

Summary

Against this background, the present invention provides improved methods of reporting and collecting voice call coverage data. In the proposed methods, the terminating party is informed of a failed attempt to establish a voice call and the terminating party reports location data to the network in response.

In contrast to the prior art, the proposed methods collect data relating to calls that could not be established, because the terminating party is not adequately covered by a voice network. Moreover, the proposed methods can collect location data via any data collection, which could be a mobile data connection as well as a WiFi data connection.

The invention further provides a method of improving existing call quality data crowdsourcing systems, without requiring new hardware. The new method is able to provide improved voice network coverage data by installing new software or updating existing software installed on the user's smartphone.

A method of reporting voice call coverage data in a telecommunications network is provided. The method comprises: receiving, at a destination user equipment, a first message comprising an indication that an attempt to establish a voice call from an originating user equipment to the destination user equipment (via a voice connection of the telecommunications network) was unsuccessful; sending, in response to the first message, a second message to a server, the second message comprising location data indicating a geographic location of the destination user equipment.

A method of collecting voice call coverage data in a telecommunications network is also provided. The method comprises: determining, at a server, that an attempt to establish a voice call from an originating user equipment to a destination user equipment was unsuccessful; sending, to the destination user equipment, a first message comprising an indication that the attempt to establish the voice call was unsuccessful; and receiving, from the destination user equipment, a second message comprising location data indicating a geographic location of the destination user equipment.

Determining that an attempt to establish a voice call from an originating user equipment to a destination user equipment was unsuccessful may comprise receiving, from the originating user equipment, a third message comprising an indication that the attempt to establish the voice call was unsuccessful.

Whilst the message may be referred to as a "third" message, the terms "first", "second" and "third" are not intended to indicate an order in which the messages are exchanged. Indeed, the third message may be received by the server before the server sends the first message to the destination user equipment.

The originating user equipment may be in communication with the server via an internet protocol, IP, data connection. The third message may be received from the originating user equipment via the IF data connection.

The third message may comprise a signal strength of the originating user equipment at the time the attempt to establish the voice call was unsuccessful, wherein the signal strength is greater than a minimum signal strength sufficient to establish a voice call (via the telecommunications network).

The signal strength may indicate a strength of a signal provided by a serving telecommunications network to the originating user equipment. The serving telecommunications network may be the same as the telecommunications network for which voice call coverage data is being reported/collected or may be a different network (e.g. if the originating and destination endpoints are served by different networks).

The signal strength may indicate an ability of the originating user equipment to establish a voice call via the telecommunications network.

The third message may further comprise location data indicating a geographic location of the originating user equipment at the time the attempt to establish the voice call was unsuccessful.

The location data indicating the geographic location of the originating user equipment may be stored in a data store. By further including the geographic location of the originating user equipment, location-specific trends may be identified and issues in the network may be diagnosed. 4 -

The method may further comprise collecting network data relating to an ability of the destination user equipment to receive voice calls (via the telecommunications network). The network data may comprise one or more of: a signal strength of the destination user equipment; circuit switched fallback data (records); voice over long term evolution, VOLTE network data; voice core network data; network congestion data; and other voice coverage issues.

The network data may indicate an ability of the destination user equipment to receive voice calls at the time the attempt to establish the voice call was unsuccessful or at the time the first message is received.

The method may further comprise storing the location data in a data store. The method may further comprise storing the network data in the data store. The data store may be a database.

The second message may comprises a time at which the attempt to establish the voice call was unsuccessful.

The location data may indicate the geographic location of the destination user equipment at a time at which the paging message is received. Alternatively, the location data may indicate the geographic location of the destination user equipment at the time at which the attempt to establish the voice call was unsuccessful.

When the user equipment receives the first message, they may immediately determine their location and include that location in the report. This is useful if the report comes through straight away (via a data connection, such as WiFi), as the location of the device is unlikely to have changed much since the call attempt was made. The current location is fairly straightforward to determine.

Alternatively, if the first message takes some time to reach the destination user equipment (e.g. because mobile data coverage is poor), the message may not arrive until the user device has moved to a location with better coverage. In this scenario, reporting the current

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location of the user equipment may not be as useful because the device has moved since the unsuccessful call attempt. Therefore, the user equipment may store a geographic location history (e.g. by storing a location every 5 minutes and location records over the past hour). Then, when the first message is received to notify the device of the unsuccessful call attempt, the device may determine the time of the unsuccessful call attempt from the first message and determine the location of the device at that time, from the location history. The user equipment may report this location when sending the second message to the server.

The destination user equipment may be in communication with the server via an internet protocol, IF, data connection. The first message may be communicated (sent and/or received) between the destination user equipment and the server via the IF data connection. The second message may be communicated between the destination user equipment and the server via the IF data connection.

The IF data connection may be a mobile data connection (rather than a WiFi data connection, for example).

A user equipment or server configured to perform the methods is also provided.

Computer software comprising instructions that, when executed on a processor of a computer, cause the computer to perform the methods is also provided.

Brief description of the drawings

The present invention will now be described with reference to the following non-limiting examples.

Figure 1 illustrates data communication between the server, the originating party and the destination party.

Figure 2 illustrates an example of an unreachability heat map for coverage enhancement using crowdsourcing. 6 -

Figure 3 illustrates a flow diagram illustrating an example method of reporting and collecting voice call coverage data in a telecommunications network.

Detailed description

Figure 1 illustrates a server for collecting voice call coverage data in a telecommunications network. The server 100 is in communication with an originating user equipment 110 (also referred to as the "A party") and a destination user equipment 120 (also referred to as a "B party").

Both the originating user equipment 110 and the destination user equipment 120 are connected to the server. The radio conditions for the originating user equipment 110 are good, while the radio conditions for the destination user equipment 120 are poor. The destination user equipment 120 may be connected to the server via a data network. For example, the destination user equipment 120 may be connected to the server via a mobile data network, the coverage of which may be different to the voice network (although both the voice network and the mobile data network may be part of the telecommunications network). Alternatively, the destination user equipment 120 may be connected to the server via a WiFi data network.

If the A party attempts the call the B party, the server may be able to identify both parties of the call through an application (or SDK) installed on each user equipment (each of which is in communication with the server). The server may notify party B that that party A has attempted to call party B. If party B could not receive the call, the server may request a geographic location from party B (e.g. a location determined via a satellite based radio navigation system, such as the global positioning system, GPS).

In another example, the destination user equipment (B party) may provide a report to the server that includes core node level report data, in addition to or instead of geographic information. In some cases, the report may include identifying information of the serving base station (or cell) and optionally may further include signal strength information for other visible base stations. 7 -

Once the server has collected a plurality of reports (using a "crowdsourcing" approach), the server may generate a heatmap illustrating geographic locations in which customers have been reported as unreachable and illustrating the reachability or unreachability of geographic areas/locations on the map (an "unreachability heatmap"). An example heatmap is illustrated in Figure 2.

The unreachability heatmap may be used to enhance coverage of the telecommunications network. For example, base station power and/or directionality may be adjusted (optionally, automatic adjustment of parameters of the telecommunications network may be performed in response to the reports).

The server may also calculate a voluntarily call drop rate. A "voluntary call drop' is a scenario where one of the call parties disconnects a call (e.g. because of audio quality issues) and then one of the parties immediately initiates another call to the other party. In other words, the same A and B party call each other again after disconnecting a call. In this scenario, the call disconnection may appear normal from the perspective of the telecommunications network, because one of the parties disconnects the call. Nevertheless, such behavior normally indicates that one or both of the parties has a perception of bad voice quality. This scenario is therefore indicative of a network issue and colleting reports of such events is beneficial to improving the network coverage data collected. To qualify as a voluntary call drop, the second call to re-establish the connection may be within a fixed time (e.g. 30 seconds) of releasing the first call. The voluntary call drop rate may be calculated per operator, per radio technology (as the coverage for each may be different due to base station locations, signal propagation/fading characteristics, robustness, number of connected subscribers, and the like).

The destination user equipment may be able to report its location at the time of an unreachable call as, in many cases, the user equipment is able to connect to the internet via a cellular/VViFi data connection, while not being able to receive voice calls. The report may be sent from the destination user equipment to the server from an application on the user equipment, such as a coverage monitoring/reporting application. The report may include location information, such as GPS information. If the originating user equipment also has the application installed, the server may identify the fact that an attempt to initiate a voice call was unsuccessful by receiving a report from the originating user equipment.

This may help the network operator to identify areas with reachability problems. 8 -

If the user equipment is not able to send a report via a data connection, the user equipment may store the report data and send it to the server when a data connection is available.

Alternatively, the originating party may not have the same reporting application installed as the destination party. In this case, the originating party may have a different but analogous application installed, perhaps supplied by a third-party vendor, that nevertheless is able to report to the server that an attempt to initiate the call was unsuccessful (perhaps with interoperability agreements in place between vendors to improve network coverage data collection). The server may be able to process the report from the originating party and gather the required report data from the destination party, even though the parties are using different applications.

In another alternative, the originating party may not have an application installed to report the unsuccessful call attempt. The server determines that the unsuccessful call attempt was made by identifying the unsuccessful signaling in the network or by receiving a report from a network element. It may be more difficult to determine a cause of the failure in this case (because the originating party does not provide report data). Nevertheless, it may be possible to determine (or infer based on network conditions) that the cause of the failure lies at the destination user equipment and therefore gather useful coverage date from the destination party.

The server may calculate VoLTE/Data performance based on subscriber IF subnet. In this way, the operator can aggregate different performance KPIs on the core node level, rather that the geographical level.

User equipment devices with embedded GPS capabilities can be programmed using software tools for different phone platforms (that includes but not limited to Android and lOs platforms) to retrieve the last known and/or current device location with GPS coordinates and last camped cellular cell identity. User equipment devices with a client application developed for this purpose may send this information to a crowdsourcing server in the occasion of terminating call failure, in order to build a database of failed terminated calls (along with time stamps, GPS locations of devices and serving cell identities, if known).

A data processing and visualization layer may be provided by the server side. The data processing layer may process the records in the failed calls database and present the data to network engineer or customer care agent in any or all of the following formats: a list of worst performing cells with highest number of failed calls for network engineer to check hardware and/or software faults in the identified cells; trends for failed call counts versus time unit per region, sub region and per cell for performance monitoring of the network; a geographical heat map for failed calls records to help a network engineer identify bad coverage spots and plan coverage improvement actions accordingly; and a map with individual instances of failed calls that can be presented to a call centre agent, e.g. to assist with complaints handling processes.

A flow diagram illustrating an example method of reporting and collecting voice call coverage data in a telecommunications network is shown in Figure 3. The method comprises the following steps: S301: receiving, at a destination user equipment, a first message comprising an indication that an attempt to establish a voice call from an originating user equipment to the destination user equipment was unsuccessful; and S302: sending, in response to the first message, a second message to a server, the second message comprising location data indicating a geographic location of the destination user equipment.

As used herein, including in the claims, unless the context indicates otherwise, singular forms of the terms herein are to be construed as including the plural form and vice versa.

For instance, unless the context indicates otherwise, a singular reference herein including in the claims, such as "a" or "an" (such as an analogue to digital convertor) means "one or more" (for instance, one or more analogue to digital convertor). Throughout the description and claims of this disclosure, the words "comprise", "including", "having" and "contain" and variations of the words, for example "comprising" and "comprises" or similar, mean "including but not limited to", and are not intended to (and do not) exclude other components.

Although embodiments according to the disclosure have been described with reference to particular types of devices and applications (particularly a user equipment device attempting to establish a voice call) and the embodiments have particular advantages in -10 -such case, as discussed herein, approaches according to the disclosure may be applied to other types of subscriber device and/or communication session. The specific structural details of the user equipment, whilst potentially advantageous (especially in view of known 3GPP constraints and capabilities), may be varied significantly to arrive at devices and methods with similar or identical operation. Each feature disclosed in this specification, unless stated otherwise, may be replaced by alternative features serving the same, equivalent or similar purpose. Thus, unless stated otherwise, each feature disclosed is one example only of a generic series of equivalent or similar features.

The use of any and all examples, or exemplary language ("for instance", "such as", "for example" and like language) provided herein, is intended merely to better illustrate the invention and does not indicate a limitation on the scope of the invention unless otherwise claimed. No language in the specification should be construed as indicating any non-claimed element as essential to the practice of the invention.

Any steps described in this specification may be performed in any order or simultaneously unless stated or the context requires otherwise. For example, the message from the originating user equipment to the server to report that the call attempt was unsuccessful is described as a "third message". This message may be sent before the first and second messages.

All of the aspects and/or features disclosed in this specification may be combined in any combination, except combinations where at least some of such features and/or steps are mutually exclusive. As described herein, there may be particular combinations of aspects that are of further benefit, such the aspects of determining a set of compensation parameters and applying a set of compensation parameters to measurements. In particular, the preferred features of the invention are applicable to all aspects of the invention and may be used in any combination. Likewise, features described in nonessential combinations may be used separately (not in combination).

Claims

CLAIMS: 1. A method of reporting voice call coverage data in a telecommunications network, the method comprising: receiving, at a destination user equipment, a first message comprising an indication that an attempt to establish a voice call from an originating user equipment to the destination user equipment was unsuccessful; sending, in response to the first message, a second message to a server, the second message comprising location data indicating a geographic location of the destination user equipment.
2. A method of collecting voice call coverage data in a telecommunications network, the method comprising: determining, at a server, that an attempt to establish a voice call from an originating user equipment to a destination user equipment was unsuccessful; sending, to the destination user equipment, a first message comprising an indication that the attempt to establish the voice call was unsuccessful; and receiving, from the destination user equipment, a second message comprising location data indicating a geographic location of the destination user equipment.
3. The method of claim 2, wherein determining that an attempt to establish a voice call from an originating user equipment to a destination user equipment was unsuccessful comprises receiving, from the originating user equipment, a third message comprising an indication that the attempt to establish the voice call was unsuccessful.
4. The method of claim 3, wherein the originating user equipment is in communication with the server via an internet protocol, IF, data connection, wherein the third message is received from the originating user equipment via the IF data connection.
5. The method of claim 4, wherein the third message comprises a signal strength of the originating user equipment at the time the attempt to establish the voice call was unsuccessful, wherein the signal strength is greater than a minimum signal strength sufficient to establish a voice call.
6. The method of claim 5, wherein the third message further comprises location data indicating a geographic location of the originating user equipment at the time the attempt to establish the voice call was unsuccessful.
7. The method of any of claims 2 to 6, further comprising collecting network data relating to an ability of the destination user equipment to receive voice calls, wherein the network data comprises one or more of: a signal strength of the destination user equipment; circuit switched fallback data: voice over long term evolution, VOLTE network data; voice core network data; and network congestion data.
8. The method of any of claims 2 to 7, further comprising storing the location data in a data store, and optionally storing the network data in the data store.
9. The method of any preceding claim, wherein either: the location data indicates the geographic location of the destination user equipment at a time at which the paging message is received; or the second message comprises a time at which the attempt to establish the voice call was unsuccessful and the location data indicates the geographic location of the destination user equipment at the time at which the attempt to establish the voice call was unsuccessful.
10. The method of any preceding claim, wherein the destination user equipment is in communication with the server via an internet protocol, IF, data connection, wherein the first message is communicated between the destination user equipment and the server via the IF data connection, and/or wherein the second message is communicated between the destination user equipment and the server via the IF data connection.
11. The method of claim 10, wherein the IF data connection is a mobile data connection.
12. A user equipment or server configured to perform the method of any of claims 1 to 11.
13. Computer software comprising instructions that, when executed on a processor of a computer, cause the computer to perform the method of any of claims 1 to 11.