Social network analysis in Telecom data

Abstract

Many systems can be represented as networks or graph collections of nodes joined by edges. The social structures in these networks can be investigated using graph theory through a process called social network analysis (SNA). In this paper, networks and SNA concepts were applied using Telecom data such as call detail records (CDRs) and customers data to model our social network and to construct a weighed graph in which each relation carries a different weight, representing how close two subscribers are to each other. In addition, SNA is used to explore the Telecom network and calculate the centrality measures, which help determine the node importance in the network. Depending on centrality measures as well as influence capability of node measure, the influencers in network were detected and targeted by marketing campaigns resulting in 30% raise in growth rate of mobile traffic compared with traditional ways. Finding Multi-SIM subscribers within the same operator or across different operators presents another important concern to Telecom companies because it allows to improve campaigns and churn prediction models. Social network similarity measures and social behavioral measures between nodes were calculated in the Telecom network to detect these Multi-SIM subscribes and 85% accuracy result was achieved for subscribes from different operators and 92% for subscribes from the same operator. The paper is based on a real dataset of 3 months CDRs and customer data provided by a local Telecom operator. This dataset is used to build a network with more than 16 million nodes and more than 300 million edges on a big data platform.