Usage pattern analysis of smartphones

Abstract

Recently, mobile traffic has increased tremendously due to the deployment of smart devices such as smartphones and smart tablets. These devices use various types of access networks such as 3G, WiFi, and mobile WiMAX. Network service providers also provide these access networks with various types of plans. There is a growing need to manage these smart devices and mobile networks. However, research on mobile network management has focused on the performance of the network itself. Few research has focused on applying the usage patterns of smartphone users to mobile network management. In this paper, we present an analysis of smartphone usage patterns. We define the five possible states of a smartphone based on such a phone's basic operations. We collected real usage log data from real smartphone users over a two month period. We show that all users have their own usage pattern. We present a case study in order to show how to apply usage pattern information to power management of smartphones. We also discuss how to apply such information to mobile device management and network management.