CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS AND PRIORITY
[0001] The present application does not claim priority from any patent application.
TECHNICAL FIELD
[0002] The present disclosure in general relates to the field of telecommunications. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to a system and method for providing network data analytics to users.
BACKGROUND
[0003] Telecom services have become increasingly popular and necessary in the past few years. Mobile calls, data services, and the like are provided to millions of users by multiple service providers. Quality of service (QoS) for the network is of prime importance for the users and is the main differentiator for the service providers. In case proper service is not received by the user from his/her service provider, the user may be compelled to change the service provider, in turn causing losses to the service provider. Also, the service provider may incur major costs in customer care in case of network degradation and frequent network maintenance activities.
[0004] Generally, the users impacted by a network degradation or outage are unaware of the causes of the network degradation. Further, a service provider may not provide any transparency regarding network congestion or outage statistics. To this end, the users may just be provided an indication of disruption of service without providing any further useful insights. The users may find such a practice frustrating as they may be unable to plan their usage during such service disruptions and also they are unaware of the estimated time of resumption or restoration of normal service.
SUMMARY
[0005] This summary is provided to introduce aspects related to system and method for an alert or notification system based on predictive analytics, further described below in the detailed description. This summary is not intended to identify essential features of
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the claimed subject matter nor is it intended for use in determining or limiting the scope of the claimed subject matter.
[0006] In one implementation, a system for generating network alerts is described. The system comprises a memory and a processor coupled to the memory. The processor may be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory to identify a set of user devices being impacted by a network. The processor may be configured to further execute instructions stored in the memory to receive, from a plurality of network nodes, data associated with an operating status of the network. The processor may be configured to further execute instructions stored in the memory to determine, based on predictive analysis of the operating status of the network, network degradation information for the network comprising one or more causes for the network degradation and estimated time of service resumption or restoration of normal service for the network. The processor may be further configured to execute instructions stored in the memory to generate, based on the network degradation information and current action being taken by the service provider, a real-time alert to be transmitted to at least one user device from the set of user devices. Further, the processor may be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory to selectively transmit the real-time alert to the at least one user device based on a selection policy associated with the at least one user device.
[0007] In another implementation, a method for generating network alerts is disclosed. The method includes identifying, by a processor, identifying a set of user devices being impacted by a network. The method may further include, receiving, by the processor from a plurality of network nodes, data associated with an operating status of the network. The method may further include, determining, by the processor, based on predictive analysis of the operating status of the network, network degradation information for the network comprising one or more causes for the network degradation and estimated time of service resumption or restoration of normal service for the network. The method may further include, generating, by the processor, based on the network degradation information, recovery action taken by the service provider and recovery status, a real-time alert to be transmitted to at least one user device from the set of user devices. The method may further include, selectively transmitting, by the processor, the real-time alert to the at least one user device based on a selection policy associated with the at least one user device.
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BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0008] The detailed description is described with reference to the accompanying figures. In the figures, the left-most digit(s) of a reference number identifies the figure in which the reference number first appears. The same numbers are used throughout the drawings to refer like features and components.
[0009] Figure 1 illustrates a network implementation of a system for generating network alerts, in accordance with an embodiment of the present subject matter.
[0010] Figure 2 illustrates detailed workings of the system, in according with an embodiment of the present subject matter.
[0011] Figure 3 illustrates an exemplary work case of generation of network alerts, in according with an embodiment of the present subject matter.
[0012] Figure 4 illustrates a method for generating network alerts, in accordance with an embodiment of the present subject matter.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0013] The present systems and methods will now be described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings in which exemplary embodiments of the disclosure are shown. However, the disclosure may be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the representative embodiments set forth herein. The exemplary embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be both thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the disclosure and enable one of ordinary skill in the art to make, use and practice the disclosure. Like reference numbers refer to like elements throughout the various drawings.
[0014] Referring to Figure 1, a network implementation 100 of a system 102 for generating network alerts. The system 102, in one implementation, may be configured to generate real-time alerts based on network outage or degradation information of a
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network 104. The system 102, in an example, may analyze the operating status of the network 104 for determining the network outage or degradation information.
[0015] In general, the network 104 may be a wireless network, a wired network or a combination thereof. The network 104 can be implemented as one of the different types of networks, such as intranet, local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), the internet, and the like. The network 104 may either be a dedicated network or a shared network. The shared network represents an association of the different types of networks that use a variety of protocols, for example, Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), and the like, to communicate with one another. Further the network 104 may include a variety of network devices, including routers, bridges, servers, computing devices, storage devices, and the like.
[0016] In particular, the network 104 may be a GSM based network or a CDMA based network. Further, the network 104 may be a 2G network, a 3G network or an LTE network. Furthermore, the system 102 may receive the operating status for the network 104 from a plurality of network nodes illustrated by 106-1, 106-2 and 106-3. Only few network nodes are illustrated for the sake of clarity, however it may be appreciated, that more network nodes may be involved in the analysis. In one example, the network node 106-1 may be a Radio Network Controller (RNC) and the network node 106-2 may be a base transceiver station (BTS). Similarly, the network node 106-3 may be a mobile switching center (MSC).
[0017] In an implementation, the system 102 may analyze the operational status of the network 104 based on information about key performance indicators (KPIs) for the network 104, real time events occurring at the network 104, total load on the network 104, configuration data of the network 104 and the like. Based on the information, the system 102 may predict network degradation such as network congestion and network outages. Further, the system 102 may also analyze the network degradation information in order to determine one or more causes for the network degradation as well as estimated time for resumption or restoration of normal service for the network 104.
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[0018] In an embodiment, the system 102 may generate the real time alerts comprising the one or more causes of service degradation, current recovery action taken by the operator, recovery status and the estimated time for resumption or restoration of normal service for the network 104. In an implementation, the system 102 may also identify a set of user devices impacted by the network 104. In an example, the set of user devices impacted by the network 104 may include cellular devices connected to the network 104. As illustrated, one of the set of user devices is shown as user device 108. The user device 108 may be any cellular device such as a mobile phone, a tablet device, a PDA device, and the like. In an implementation, the system 102 may transmit the real-time alert to an application running on the user device 108.
[0019] Figure 2 illustrates the system 102 in detail, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure. In one embodiment, the system 102 may include at least one processor 202, an input/output (I/O) interface 204, and a memory 206. The at least one processor 202 may be implemented as one or more microprocessors, microcomputers, microcontrollers, digital signal processors, central processing units, state machines, logic circuitries, and/or any devices that manipulate signals based on operational instructions. Among other capabilities, the at least one processor 202 is configured to fetch and execute computer-readable instructions or modules stored in the memory 206.
[0020] The I/O interface 204 may include a variety of software and hardware interfaces, for example, a web interface, a graphical user interface, and the like. The I/O interface 204 may enable the system 102 to communicate with other computing devices, such as web servers and external data servers (not shown). The I/O interface 204 can facilitate multiple communications within a wide variety of networks and protocol types, including wired networks, for example, LAN, cable, etc., and wireless networks, such as WLAN, cellular, or satellite. The I/O interface 204 may include one or more ports for connecting a number of devices to one another or to another server.
[0021] The memory 206 may include any computer-readable medium or computer program product known in the art including, for example, volatile memory, such as static random access memory (SRAM) and dynamic random access memory (DRAM), and/or nonvolatile memory, such as read only memory (ROM), erasable programmable ROM,
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flash memories, hard disks, optical disks, a compact disks (CDs), digital versatile disc or digital video disc (DVDs) and magnetic tapes. The memory 206 may include modules 208 and data 210.
[0022] The modules 208 include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc., which perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. In one implementation, the modules 208 may include an identification module 212, an analysis module 214, a notification module 216 and other modules 218. The other modules 218 may include programs or coded instructions that supplement applications and functions of the system 102.
[0023] The data 210, amongst other things, serves as a repository for storing data processed, received, and generated by one or more of the modules 208. The data 210 may also include network data 220, selection policy data 222, and other data 224. Each of the aforementioned modules is explained in detail in subsequent paragraphs of the specification.
[0024] In operation, the identification module 212 may identify a set of user devices impacted by a network, such as the network 104. In one example, the network may be a plurality of network nodes (not shown) interconnected and operating at a particular frequency range designated to a given service provider. In an implementation, the identification module 212 may identify the set of user devices based on number of user devices connected to the network at a given time, location of the user devices, active and passive states of the user devices and the like. The identification module 212 may generate a listing of the user devices impacted by the network for the analysis module 214.
[0025] The analysis module 214, in one embodiment, may analyze an operating status of the network. In an implementation, the operating status of the network may be based on one or more factors, including but not limited to, KPIs for the network, QoS parameters associated with the network, total load on the network, configuration data of the network and one or more real time network events occurring at the network. In an implementation, the operating status of the network may be based on operational data received from the plurality of network nodes (not shown). The analysis module 214 may
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analyze the operating status of the network in order to determine network degradation information for the network. The network degradation information for the network, in one example, may include one or more causes for the degradation and an estimated time for service resumption or restoration of normal service. In an implementation, the operating status of the network may be stored in the system 102 as network data 220.
[0026] In an implementation, the analysis module 214 may generate real-time alerts based on the network degradation. In one example, the real-time alerts may include information about causes of network degradation, current recovery action taken by the service provider, time in service resumption or restoration of normal service, predicted service disruptions for a given time-period, network congestion and outage information, call drop information, capacity additions for the network, and the like. In an embodiment, the analysis module 214 may also generate a pictorial indication of network degradation for the network, over a predefined period of time. In an example, the pictorial indication may be a heat map indicative of the time-wise distribution of network outages in a particular region. In another example, the heat map may be indicative of current status of the network such as “smooth operation”, “congestion expected”, “highly congested”, and the like. In another example, the heat map may be indicative of the estimated time for network 104 to resume “smooth operation” based on the analysis done by the analysis module 214.
[0027] In one embodiment, the notification module 216 may transmit the real-time alert and/or the pictorial indication to one or more user devices from the set of user devices impacted by the network. In one example, the notification module 216 may transmit the real-time alert and/or the pictorial indication to an application running on the user device. In another embodiment, the notification module 216 may transmit the real-time alert and/or the pictorial indication to the one or more user devices based on selection policies associated with the one or more user devices. In an implementation, the selection policy associated with a particular user device may include, priority for the user device, one or more user preferences, and one or more service provider settings. The selection policies for the set of user devices impacted by the network 104, in one implementation, may be stored in the system 102 as selection policy data 222.
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[0028] In one example, based on the selection policy associated with the user device, the level of information about the network degradation to be shared with the user may be determined. That is, based on priority level of the user device as well as one or more pre-configured rules set by a service provider of the user, content of the real-time alert and/or the pictorial indication may be determined. This may benefit the user in getting insights about the network. Further, the service provider may also be able to provide the user with insights about the network without divulging sensitive details.
[0029] Figure 3 illustrates exemplary use cases for the system 102. As described in the foregoing, the system 102 may generate real-time alerts about network degradation of the network 104. In an implementation, the system 102 may receive operating status of the network 104 from one or more data sources 304 of the network 104. The data sources 304, in one example, may be configured to store operational data of the plurality of network nodes (not shown). For example, the data sources 304 may store operational data for routers, controllers, RNC, MSC, and the like.
[0030] As described, the system 102 may analyze the operating status of the network 104 in order to determine the network degradation information. In an example, the network degradation information may point out towards congestion in the network 104. In case congestion is detected, the system 102 may identify one or more user devices currently impacted by the network 104. In an implementation, the one or more devices impacted by the network 104 may be determined based on location details received from the one or more user devices. The location details may then be compared to coverage area of the network 104. User devices lying in the coverage area of the network 104 may be identified as the impacted user devices.
[0031] In an implementation, the system 102 may determine one or more causes for the network outage. In an example, the one or more causes for network outage or degradation may be peak hour usages, excessive data flow, and the like. In another implementation, the system 102 may also determine recovery action and recovery status for the network outage. The recovery action, for example, may be “additional capacity added”, “technician alerted” and the like. The recovery status in one example, may be “recovery initiated”, “recovery delayed” etc. In an implementation, the system 102 may
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generate a real-time alert including information about the one or more causes for network outage, the recovery action and the recovery status.
[0032] In another example, the network degradation information may indicate network congestion. In the example, the system 102 may assign a congestion status to each one of the plurality of network nodes. Further, the system 102 generate a pictorial indication of the congestion for each cell in the network 104. The system 102 may also predict a decongestion time for the network 104 based on the network degradation information and include the decongestion time in the pictorial indication. The pictorial indication, in one example, may be a heat-map.
[0033] In one embodiment, the system 102 may transmit the real-time alert and/or the pictorial indication to at least one user device 306 from the set of user devices impacted by the network 104. In one implementation, the system 102 may transmit the real-time alert and/or the pictorial indication to the user device 306 based on selection policy, service provider settings and one or more user preferences associated with the user device 306. In an example, the system 102 may retrieve the selection policy, the service provider settings as well as the user preferences from a database 308. Selection policies, service provider settings and user preferences for plurality of user devices may be stored as data 310 in the database 308, as illustrated. In an implementation, the database 308 may be a part of the network 104. In another implementation, the database 308 may be a database installed at the service provider’s end.
[0034] In one example, the user device 306 may receive the real-time alert and/or the pictorial indication on a third party application running on the user device 306. Further, different user devices may receive different levels of data in the real time alerts and/or pictorial indications, based on different settings. For example, some service providers may only choose to share data about recovery time and not about recovery action. In another example, some service providers may charge users in case they want to opt for the real-time alerts and/or pictorial indications. Further, the users may also be given an option to opt for alerts. In such instances, the service provider may facilitate the users with service packs for such updates.
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[0035] Referring now to Fig. 4, a method 400 for generating network alerts is illustrated. The method may start at step 402, wherein a set of user devices impacted by a network may be identified. In an implementation, the set of user devices impacted by the network may be identified by comparing location data of the user devices with a coverage area for the network.
[0036] At step 404, data associated with an operating status of the network may be obtained from a plurality of network nodes. In an example, the plurality of network nodes may include RNC, MSC, BTS, routers, controllers, and the like interconnected within the network.
[0037] At step 406, network degradation information for the network may be determined based on analysis of the operating status of the network. In an implementation, the network degradation information may include one or more causes for the network degradation and estimated time for service resumption or restoration of normal service.
[0038] At step 408, a real-time alert to be transmitted to at least one user devices from the set of user devices may be generated. The real-time alert, in an example, may be generated based on the network degradation information.
[0039] At step 410, the real-time alert may be selectively transmitted to the at least one user device based on a selection policy associated with the at least one user device. In an implementation, the selection policy may include data about user settings and service provider settings.
[0040] Although implementations for methods and systems for enabling a maintenance activity of an equipment have been described in language specific to structural features and/or methods, it is to be understood that the appended claims are not necessarily limited to the specific features or methods described. Rather, the specific features and methods are disclosed as examples of implementations for generating real time network alerts based on analytics.
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WE CLAIM:
1. A system for generating network alerts, the system comprising:
a memory; and
a processor coupled to the memory, wherein the processor is configured to execute instructions stored in the memory to:
identify a set of user devices being impacted by a network;
receive, from a plurality of network nodes, data associated with an operating status of the network;
determine, based on analysis of the operating status of the network, network degradation information for the network comprising one or more causes for the network degradation and estimated time of service resumption for the network;
generate, based on the network degradation information, a real-time alert to be transmitted to at least one user device from the set of user devices; and
selectively transmit the real-time alert to the at least one user device based on a selection policy associated with the at least one user device.
2. The system of claim 1, wherein the data associated with the operating status of the network comprises information about one of key performance indicators (KPIs) for the network, total load on the network, quality of service (QoS) parameters for the network, configuration data of the network and one or more real time network events.
3. The system of claim 1, wherein the selection policy comprises at least one of priority for the at least one user device, one or more user preferences, and one or more service provider settings.
4. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more causes for network degradation comprise network outage, network congestion, outdated network elements and improper configurations associated with the network as determined by analyzing the operating status of the network.
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5. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to further execute the instructions stored in the memory to selectively transmit the real-time alert to at least one application running on the at least one user device.
6. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to further execute the instructions stored in the memory to:
generate a pictorial indication for the network predicting network degradation for the network for a predefined period of time; and
selectively transmit the pictorial indication to the at least one user device based on the selection policy associated with the at least one user device.
7. A method for generating network alerts, the method comprising:
identifying, by a processor, a set of user devices being impacted by a network;
receiving, by the processor, from a plurality of network nodes, data associated with an operating status of the network;
determining, by the processor, based on analysis of the operating status of the network, network degradation information for the network comprising one or more causes for the network degradation and estimated time of service resumption for the network;
generating, by the processor, based on the network degradation information, a real-time alert to be transmitted to at least one user device from the set of user devices; and
selectively transmitting, by the processor, the real-time alert to the at least one user device based on a selection policy associated with the at least one user device.
8. The method of claim 7, wherein the data associated with the operating status of the network comprises information about one of key performance indicators (KPIs) for the network, total load on the network, quality of service (QoS) parameters for the network, configuration data of the network and one or more real time network events.
9. The method of claim 7, wherein the selection policy comprises at least one of priority for the at least one user device, one or more user preferences, and one or more service provider settings.
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10. The method of claim 7, wherein the one or more causes for network degradation comprise network outage, low bandwidth, outdated network elements and improper configurations associated with the network as determined by analyzing the operating status of the network.
11. The method of claim 7, further comprising selectively transmitting, by the processor, the real-time alert to at least one application running on the at least one user device.
12. The method of claim 7, further comprising:
generating, by the processor, a pictorial indication for the network predicting network degradation for the network for a predefined period of time; and
selectively transmitting, by the processor, the pictorial indication to the at least one user device based on the selection policy associated with the at least one user