Mobile Phone Network Research Articles

Personality dimensions and service failure severity: A cross-sectional study in the cellular industry

Service providers base service recovery efforts to retain consumers on service failure severity. A good understanding of possible effects on service failure severity is therefore necessary, and so this study examined the effects of personality dimensions on service failure severity. A hierarchical regression analysis was performed on data collected from 564 respondents through convenience sampling. The results indicated significant effects of Extraversion and Agreeableness on perceived service failure severity. In terms of theory, this study extends the influence of the trait theory of personality to service failure research. Furthermore, practical recommendations for cell phone network providers’ service recovery strategies include combining restorative and apologetic strategies.

Towards Recognising Individual Behaviours from Pervasive Mobile Datasets in Urban Spaces

Mobile phone network data, routinely collected by its providers, possess very valuable encoded information about human behaviors. Intensive tourist activities in urban spaces bring smartness via mobile phone fingerprints into the understanding of an urban ecosystem. Due to the diverse processes that govern mobile communication, mining the geolocations of individuals seems to be non-trivial, tedious, and even irregular, which can lead to an incomplete trajectory. Enriching trajectories with infrastructural facilities is another challenge. We provide a unified approach, comprised of both informal and formal elements, to obtain a common framework, which maps pervasive datasets into a collection of individual patterns in urban spaces, to obtain context-enhanced trajectory reconstructions. Through the algorithmization of the approach, we acquire a study that provides new insights on individual and anonymized tourist behaviors. In order to obtain individual behaviors, it is necessary to carry out an arduous extraction process. We propose a multi-agent system architecture and predefined message streams, which are transported on a message-broker platform. We also propose all of the basic algorithms that compose the prototype of the entire multi-agent system. All algorithms were formally analyzed due to termination and time complexity. System evaluation, together with a few basic experiments, was also carried out. The performance evaluation results authenticate system feasibility, credibility, and vitality. Those factors prove its effectiveness and the possibility to build the target system, whilst supporting every urban ecosystem. The system would also strongly influence municipal services to understand urban context and operate more effectively in order to support tourist activities to become safer and more comfortable.

Technology Adoption and Access to Credit Via Mobile Phones

We study the effect of information on technology adoption and productivity in agriculture. Our empirical strategy exploits the expansion of the mobile phone network in previously uncovered areas of rural India coupled with the availability of call centers for agricultural advice. We measure information on agricultural practices by analyzing the content of 2.5 million phone calls made by farmers to one of India's leading call centers for agricultural advice. We find that areas receiving coverage from new towers and with no language barriers between farmers and advisers answering their calls experience higher adoption of high yielding varieties of seeds and other complementary inputs, as well as higher increase in agricultural productivity. Our estimates indicate that information frictions can explain around 25 percent of the agricultural productivity gap between the most productive and the least productive areas in our sample. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

Meteorological Observations in the Japanese Alps Region

Mountainous areas are quite sensitive to global-scale environmental changes, such as warming. Therefore, the effect of global warming on these meteorological elements is a critical issue. However, Mt. Fuji Weather Station, which was once a symbol of meteorological observation in mountainous areas, has remained unmanned since August 2004. Of the other observation sites of the Japan Meteorological Agency, Nobeyama, at 1350 m.a.s.l. elevation, is the highest. When evaluating the effects of a global-scale warming event on regional-scale environmental change in the Japanese Alps at a high elevation of 1350 m.a.s.l., it must be noted that the lack of meteorological observation data at high elevations impedes any evaluations of the effects of warming on the ecological system and water resources in mountainous ranges. A network of 14 meteorological observatories has been developed by Shinshu University in the Japanese Alps, which have already started recording observations. The highest observation site is Mt. Yari, at 3125 m.a.s.l.. Observation data from these sites are sent to a computer at the laboratory via a data communication mobile telephone network or a phone line throughout the year. These meteorological observation data are available on the laboratory website in quasi-real time. The interannual variability of annual mean temperature and snow depth in the Japanese Alps region are discussed.

The Port Elizabeth Electric Tramway case:1 Is the meaning ascribed to the phrase “in the production of the income” by Watermeyer AJP in the Port Elizabeth Electric Tramway case still religiously followed today?

This article analyses the meaning attributed to the phrase “in the production of the income” as used in the present section 11(a) of the Income Tax Act, which provides for general expenses to be allowed as deductions against income. Read together with section 23(g), section 11(a) is commonly referred to as the “general deduction formula”. It has been said that the meaning ascribed to the phrase by Watermeyer AJP (as he was then) in his judgment in the Port Elizabeth Electric Tramway Company Ltd v CIR is “too mechanical and contrived”. Consequently, the judiciary, in applying the meaning as attributed to it by Watermeyer AJP in subsequent cases, has sometimes led to inconsistent and conflicting judgments. In fact, the application of the meaning so ascribed takes no account of the economic and other non-economic realities of doing business in the 21st century. The main objective of this article has been to re-ignite the debate surrounding Watermeyer AJP’s interpretation of the phrase, “in the production of the income”, in the Port Electric Tramway case and in so doing establish whether the narrow meaning ascribed by him to that phrase has subtly been changed and widened by the judiciary in subsequent cases. It can be concluded from an analysis of the case law discussed in this article that Watermeyer AJP’s interpretation, if strictly adhered to, can and does lead to absurd results. However, it is submitted that sanity has fi nally prevailed. The Supreme Court of Appeal in the comparatively recently decided cases of C:SARS v Mobile Telephone Networks Holdings (Pty) Ltd and Warner Lambert SA (Pty) Ltd v C:SARS, have considerably widened the ambit of expenses that may now be claimed in terms of section 11(a) of the Income Tax Act. The deduction of expenditure as was allowed in those two cases by the Supreme Court of Appeal, would appear not to have been permissible in terms of Watermayer AJP’s interpretation of the meaning of the phrase “in the production of income”. It is submitted that the economic realities =of doing business in South Africa in the 21st century are now taken into account in determining whether a business expense falls within the ambit of the phrase “incurred in the production of the income”.

The influence of relationship intention on cell phone users’ attitudes towards complaining and complaint behaviour

In any service environment, there is a strong possibility that customers’ expectations and the actual service delivery are not in unison. When service failures do occur, customers’ attitudes towards complaining directly influence their actual complaint behaviour. As not all customers want to build relationships with service providers, it is imperative that service providers gain a deeper understanding of the behaviour, and specifically the complaint behaviour, of those customers who do have relationship intentions. The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of relationship intention on customers’ attitudes towards complaining and complaint behaviour following a service failure within the cell phone industry. Convenience sampling was used, and 605 respondents participated in the study. The results indicate that the majority of respondents who participated in this study had a propensity to complain, and that respondents with high relationship intentions are more likely to voice a billing error to their cell phone network provider than respondents with low relationship intentions. Furthermore, relationship intention should be considered as a variable that could influence customers’ attitudes towards complaining and complaint behaviour. The results make a valuable theoretical contribution and have managerial implications for service providers in the cell phone industry.

A decade of leveraging big data for sustainable development

Advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs) are driving global changes in our society—from the way we communicate with each other to the forces that shape our economy and behaviour. Insights generated from big data are already transforming many domains. Mobility data from mobile phone networks can reveal the extent of displacement after a disaster and help predict the spread of infectious diseases, while mobile airtime purchases can help track food consumption. Roofing materials visible from space serve as a proxy for poverty, changes in debit card usage indicate the impact of a crisis, and postal records have been used to estimate trade flows. At the same time, the rapidly evolving capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) offer new opportunities to unlock the value of big data for more evidence-based decision-making that can accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Constructing Time-Dependent Origin-Destination Matrices With Adaptive Zoning Scheme and Measuring Their Similarities With Taxi Trajectory Data

There has been a recent push towards using opportunistic sensing data collected from sources like automatic vehicle location (AVL) systems, mobile phone networks, and global positioning system (GPS) tracking to construct origin-destination (O-D) matrices, which are an effective alternative to expensive and time-consuming traditional travel surveys. These data have numerous drawbacks: they may have inadequate detail about the journey, may lack spatial and temporal granularity, or may be limited due to privacy regulations. Taxi trajectory data is an opportunistic sensing data type that can be effectively used for O-D matrix construction because it addresses the issues that plague other data sources. This paper presents a new approach for using taxi trajectory data to construct a taxi O-D matrix that is dynamic in both space and time. The model’s origin and destination zone sizes and locations are not fixed, allowing the dimensions to vary from one matrix to another. Comparisons between these spatiotemporal-varying O-D matrices cannot be made using a traditional method like matrix subtraction. Therefore, this paper introduces a new measure of similarity. Our proposed approaches are applied to the taxi trajectory data collected from Lisbon, Portugal as a case study. The results reveal the periods in which taxi travel demand is the highest and lowest, as well as the periods in which the highest and lowest regular taxi travel demand patterns take shape. This information about taxi travel demand patterns is essential for informed taxi service operations management.

Radio frequency nonionizing radiation exposure burdens to the population at major market centers in Ibadan metropolis, Nigeria

There has been proliferation of mobile phone base station towers in recent years due to an expansion of mobile telephone networks. This has been accompanied by an increase in the community concern about possible radiation exposure due to the radio frequency (RF) radiation emissions from antennae mounted on the base station towers. This work presents RF measurements and information on the levels at selected markets in Ibadan, Nigeria. The highest RF power density of 499.6 μW/m2 obtained at Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) 1800 band occurred at Apete market. The lowest RF power density of 0.1 μW/m2 was also obtained at Alesinloye for GSM 1800, Dugbe, and Ogunpa for GSM 900; at this point of measurement, the base transceiver station was not in the line of sight. The measured RF levels were compared with the maximum permissible limit for nonoccupational exposure with respect to the Radiocommunications (Electromagnetic Radiation – Human Exposure) Standard 1999 which specifies a maximum nonoccupational exposure limit of 2 W/m2 (equivalent to 200 μW/cm2) at relevant base station frequencies. The results showed that the RF exposure levels were several orders of magnitude below the maximum permissible limits around the environments of the major markets in the city of Ibadan.

Inferring and Modeling Migration Flows Using Mobile Phone Network Data

Estimating migration flows and forecasting future trends is important, both to understand the causes and effects of migration and to implement policies directed at supplying particular services. Over the years, less research has been done on modeling migration flows than the efforts allocated to modeling other flow types, for instance, commute. Limited data availability has been one of the major impediments for empirical analyses and for theoretical advances in the modeling of migration flows. As a migration trip takes place much less frequent compared to the commute, it requires a longitudinal set of data for the analysis. This study makes use a massive mobile phone network data to infer migration trips and their distribution. Insightful characteristics of the inferred migration trips are revealed, such as intra/inter-district migration flows, migration distance distribution, and origin-destination (O-D) movements. For migration trip distribution modelling, log-linear model, traditional gravity model, and recently introduced radiation model were examined with different approaches taken in defining parameters for each model. As the result, the gravity and log-linear models with a direct distance (displacement) used as its travel cost and district centroids used as the reference points perform best among the other alternative models. A radiation model that considers district population performs best among the radiation models, but worse than that of the gravity and log-linear models.

Mobility pattern of individual user in dynamic mobile phone network using call data record

The pervasiveness of cellular telephones, along with rapid advancement in cellular technology, wireless networks and mobile applications, has made them increasingly effective in our daily lives. Individual human activity with respect to travel behaviour is still in a less explored stage. In the past few decades, travel patterns and human activity have become more complex and exhibit a high degree of variations in space and time. In this study, how and in what extent Call Data Records (CDRs) from mobile phones provide the underlying activities of anonymised customers when a user initiates or receives a voice call or message is investigated in detail. Thus, this paper attempts to discover personal human mobility patterns where location, duration and days are the essential attributes in the interpretation of results. Profile-based paging algorithm has been proposed based on the individual human travel pattern. The finding suggests that the proposed algorithm is three times more efficient than conventional paging (blanket paging) and two times more effective than various other intelligent paging algorithms. Further, a substantial saving of about 35% in bandwidth is also obtained from the validation results.

Competition in Network Industries: Evidence from the Rwandan Mobile Phone Network

Competition in Network Industries: Evidence from the Rwandan Mobile Phone Network

Mobile Phones and Mozambique Traders: What is the Size of Reduced Search Costs and Who Benefits?

We investigate to what extent the roll-out of the mobile phone network in Mozambique reduced transport costs and search costs, and thereby decreased spatial price dispersion and improved market efficiency. Estimations are based on data of transport costs of maize grain and maize market prices. The mobile phone rollout explains a 10%-13% reduction in maize price dispersion. Around half of this reduction is associated with search costs related to transport, the other half with other search costs, for example for the collection of maize in source markets. Search costs are substantial and also a substantial component of total transport costs. Benefits of increased market efficiency are biased towards consumer markets. Results are robust for non-random rollout of the mobile phone network and several other threats.

Integrated disease surveillance and response implementation in Liberia, findings from a data quality audit, 2017.

Introductionin spite of the efforts and resources committed by the division of infectious disease and epidemiology (DIDE) of the national public health institute of Liberia (NPHIL)/Ministry of health to strengthening integrated disease surveillance and response (IDSR) across the country, quality data management system remains a challenge to the Liberia NPHIL/MoH (Ministry of health), with incomplete and inconsistent data constantly being reported at different levels of the surveillance system. As part of the monitoring and evaluation strategy for IDSR continuous improvement, data quality assessment (DQA) of the IDSR system to identify successes and gaps in the disease surveillance information system (DSIS) with the aim of ensuring data accuracy, reliability and credibility of generated data at all levels of the health system; and to inform an operational plan to address data quality needs for IDSR activities is required.Methodsmulti-stage cluster sampling that included stage 1: simple random sample (SRS) of five counties, stage 2: simple random sample of two districts and stage 3: simple random sample of three health facilities was employed during the study pilot assessment done in Montserrado County with Liberia institute of bio medical research (LIBR) inclusive. A total of thirty (30) facilities was targeted, twenty nine (29) of the facilities were successfully audited: one hospital, two health centers, twenty clinics and respondents included: health facility surveillance focal persons (HFSFP), zonal surveillance officers (ZSOs), district surveillance officers (DSOs) and County surveillance officers (CSOs).Resultsthe assessment revealed that data use is limited to risk communication and sensitization, no examples of use of data for prioritization or decision making at the subnational level. The findings indicated the following: 23% (7/29) of health facilities having dedicated phone for reporting, 20% (6/29) reported no cell phone network, 17% (5/29) reported daily access to internet, 56.6% (17/29) reported a consistent supply of electricity, and no facility reported access to functional laptop. It was also established that 40% of health facilities have experienced a stock out of laboratory specimens packaging supplies in the past year. About half of the surveyed health facilities delivered specimens through riders and were assisted by the DSOs. There was a large variety in the reported packaging process, with many staff unable to give clear processes. The findings during the exercise also indicated that 91% of health facility staff were mentored on data quality check and data management including the importance of the timeliness and completeness of reporting through supportive supervision and mentorship; 65% of the health facility assessed received supervision on IDSR core performance indicator; and 58% of the health facility officer in charge gave feedback to the community level.Conclusionpublic health is a data-intensive field which needs high-quality data and authoritative information to support public health assessment, decision-making and to assure the health of communities. Data quality assessment is important for public health. In this review completeness, accuracy, and timeliness were the three most-assessed attributes. Quantitative data quality assessment primarily used descriptive surveys and data audits, while qualitative data quality assessment methods include primarily interviews, questionnaires administration, documentation reviews and field observations. We found that data-use and data-process have not been given adequate attention, although they were equally important factors which determine the quality of data. Other limitations of the previous studies were inconsistency in the definition of the attributes of data quality, failure to address data users’ concerns and a lack of triangulation of mixed methods for data quality assessment. The reliability and validity of the data quality assessment were rarely reported. These gaps suggest that in the future, data quality assessment for public health needs to consider equally the three dimensions of data quality, data use and data process. Measuring the perceptions of end users or consumers towards data quality will enrich our understanding of data quality issues. Data use is limited to risk communication and sensitization, no examples of use of data for prioritization or decision making at the sub national level.

Mobile Money

Access to financial institutions is difficult in developing economies and especially for the poor. However, the widespread adoption of mobile phones has enabled the development of mobile money systems that deliver financial services through the mobile phone network. Despite the success of mobile money, there is a lack of quantitative studies that unveil which factors contribute to the adoption and sustained usage of such services. In this paper, we describe the results of a quantitative study that analyzes data from the world's leading mobile money service, M-Pesa. We analyzed millions of anonymized mobile phone communications and M-Pesa transactions in an African country. Our contributions are threefold: (1) we analyze the customers' usage of M-Pesa and report large-scale patterns of behavior; (2) we present the results of applying machine learning models to predict mobile money adoption (AUC=0.691), and mobile money spending (AUC=0.619) using multiple data sources: mobile phone data, M-Pesa agent information, the number of M-Pesa friends in the user's social network, and the characterization of the user's geographic location; (3) we discuss the most predictive features in both models and draw key implications for the design of mobile money services in a developing country. We find that the most predictive features are related to mobile phone activity, to the presence of M-Pesa users in a customer's ego-network and to mobility. We believe that our work will contribute to the understanding of the factors playing a role in the adoption and sustained usage of mobile money services in developing economies.

How Important of The Accuracy Sales Forecasting Method against Sales Strategy Decision Making of The Mobile Phone Network Operator Company: A Case Study

This paper examinesthe accuracy of sales forecasting method that are important for decision making of sales strategy the mobile phone network operator company. Sales forecasting used to estimate company products sales for next year, so the company could make sales strategy plans and estimation an amount to be produced next year. Mobile phone network operator is one of un-seasonable products. The purpose of the paper is to compare, analyze, and giving a recommend of the best sales forecasting method to improve the mobile phone network operator company. Quantitative data were collected through published companies finnacial reports, articles, and journals which related with Supply Chain Management theory. The contribution this paper is providing the mobile phone network operator company to make successful sales strategy based from good sales forecasting method. Keywords – Sales Forecasting, Mobile Phone Network Operator Company, Sales Strategy, Forecasting Method

Factors Influencing Cloud Computing in Telecommunications Companies

<p>This study aims to identify the role of cloud computing in achieving success in e-governance in Jordan. This paper investigates the effect of four accomplishment aspects (availability, flexibility, cost saving and scalability) for executing cloud computing technology in telecommunication companies on Jordan e-governance implementation. A questionnaire was developed to collect data from respondents working for the three-main public mobile telephone network operators: Zain, Orange and Umniah. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences program was used in the descriptive analysis of the responses. The results show that all four success factors have a high level of impact, separately and together, on e-governance in Jordan. Cost saving has the highest impact, followed by scalability, availability and flexibility. Based on these results, the study makes some suggestions for further research that could enrich understanding of the implementation of cloud computing and its effect on egovernance in Jordan.</p>

Field testing a remote monitoring system for hand water pumps

Abstract Throughout Africa, many hand water pumps malfunction and remain inoperable for long periods of time. Previous studies from a number of sub-Saharan countries have indicated that in some regions up to 65% of hand pumps may be broken. It is reported that robust monitoring of remote water pumps can help address some of these problems. However, traditional project monitoring strategies generally rely on physical site visits to remote locations. These visits can be time consuming and resource intensive, which in turn may delay the implementation of pump repairs. In contrast, recent years have seen the emergence of a range of new monitoring technologies that use mobile phone networks to rapidly report the operational status of water projects from remote sites. The authors describe the development of a new monitoring system, called MANTIS, which is intended for hand pumps in developing regions. The paper presents data from early field trials of MANTIS in Sierra Leone and The Gambia. The unit relays ‘near real time’ operational data from the water pump to an accessible online platform.

Inferring modes of transportation using mobile phone data

Cities are growing at a fast rate, and transportation networks need to adapt accordingly. To design, plan, and manage transportation networks, domain experts need data that reflect how people move from one place to another, at what times, for what purpose, and in what mode(s) of transportation. However, traditional data collection methods are not cost-effective or timely. For instance, travel surveys are very expensive, collected every ten years, a period of time that does not cope with quick city changes, and using a relatively small sample of people. In this paper, we propose an algorithmic pipeline to infer the distribution of mode of transportation usage in a city, using mobile phone network data. Our pipeline is based on a Topic-Supervised Non-Negative Matrix Factorization model, using a Weak-Labeling strategy on user trajectories with data obtained from open datasets, such as GTFS and OpenStreetMap. As a case study, we show results for the city of Santiago, Chile, which has a sophisticated intermodal public transportation system. Importantly, our pipeline delivers coherent results that are explainable, with interpretable parameters at each step. Finally, we discuss the potential applications and implications of such a system in transportation and urban planning.

Measurements of Mobile Signal Received Power Level at Ringlet, Cameron Highland, Malaysia

Tenaga Nasional, the electric utility company in Peninsular Malaysia have been installing electronic meters that can establish wireless connectivity over the mobile phone network since 2005. Several locations including Ringlet, Cameron Highland have been pointed out as having difficulties in establishing a stable connection to the national main server. Empirical investigations had been carried out to determine the availability of service coverage and the associated signal received power levels at the said location. The findings are reported in this article. The outcomes from the measurement campaign were used to deduce the likely solution that is capable of establishing a more reliable link. Field trials involving installations of high-gain antennas and signal boosters as potential solutions were also carried out at selected sites within the district. It is the objective of the study to develop a total solution that can ultimately address the communication issue.