Characterising Spatial Relationships in Base Station Resource Usage

This work preliminarily introduces an up to date measurement-driven examination of the spatial characteristics of network resource usage. The data set used is from a large nationwide 3G cellular network comprised of several thousand base stations. Firstly, we discuss our data set and how it can be appropriately used. Next, we examine the spatial correlation between base stations in terms of radio resource usage. We find significant spatial correlation, particularly for proximate base stations. We also examine the causality structure in the network using Granger causality and explore a metric for the identification of key indicator base stations. These indicator base stations act as hubs in the wider network and provide additional information about the future states of their neighbors. Finally, we conclude with a brief discussion of how we wish to build on this work.