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Quality of Coverage (QoC): A New Paradigm for Quantifying Cellular Network Coverage Quality, Usability and Stability

Varshika Srinivasavaradhan, Morgan Vigil-Hayes, Ellen Zegura, Elizabeth Belding

TL;DR

The paper addresses the gap in cellular coverage evaluation by introducing Quality of Coverage (QoC), a multi‑dimensional framework that captures usability and temporal stability alongside traditional speed metrics. It defines five KPI components—Usability, Persistence, Usable Performance Mean, Usable Performance Variability, and Resilience—and leverages spatial aggregation via DDSketch to produce region‑level QoC profiles. The approach is evaluated with synthetic datasets and real‑world RTT and Speedtest measurements, demonstrating that QoC reveals nuanced, location‑ and time‑dependent coverage quality that traditional thresholds miss, and that no single KPI suffices to describe all scenarios. The work provides actionable insights for network planning, policy evaluation, and consumer decision‑making, particularly in highly variable and emerging mmWave/URLLC contexts, while also outlining data sparsity considerations for practical QoC deployment.

Abstract

Current representations of cellular coverage are overly simplistic; they state only the minimal level of available bandwidth (i.e., 35/3Mbps download/upload speed for 5G) and fail to incorporate a critical component of usability: network stability over space and time. Cellular coverage quality is complex given wireless propagation characteristics and relationships between network load and (often limited) network capacity. A more fine-grained characterization is essential. We introduce Quality of Coverage (QoC), a novel multi-dimensional set of key performance indicators (KPIs) that reflect actual measured performance quality, usability and stability. This representation of the coverage of the cellular network more fully captures temporal and spatial usability and resilience. We motivate and define a set of QoC KPIs and use three distinct datasets to analyze the ability of the KPIs to characterize network behavior, demonstrating the ability of QoC to offer a more fine-grained and useful representation of cellular coverage than possible with current metrics.

Quality of Coverage (QoC): A New Paradigm for Quantifying Cellular Network Coverage Quality, Usability and Stability

TL;DR

The paper addresses the gap in cellular coverage evaluation by introducing Quality of Coverage (QoC), a multi‑dimensional framework that captures usability and temporal stability alongside traditional speed metrics. It defines five KPI components—Usability, Persistence, Usable Performance Mean, Usable Performance Variability, and Resilience—and leverages spatial aggregation via DDSketch to produce region‑level QoC profiles. The approach is evaluated with synthetic datasets and real‑world RTT and Speedtest measurements, demonstrating that QoC reveals nuanced, location‑ and time‑dependent coverage quality that traditional thresholds miss, and that no single KPI suffices to describe all scenarios. The work provides actionable insights for network planning, policy evaluation, and consumer decision‑making, particularly in highly variable and emerging mmWave/URLLC contexts, while also outlining data sparsity considerations for practical QoC deployment.

Abstract

Current representations of cellular coverage are overly simplistic; they state only the minimal level of available bandwidth (i.e., 35/3Mbps download/upload speed for 5G) and fail to incorporate a critical component of usability: network stability over space and time. Cellular coverage quality is complex given wireless propagation characteristics and relationships between network load and (often limited) network capacity. A more fine-grained characterization is essential. We introduce Quality of Coverage (QoC), a novel multi-dimensional set of key performance indicators (KPIs) that reflect actual measured performance quality, usability and stability. This representation of the coverage of the cellular network more fully captures temporal and spatial usability and resilience. We motivate and define a set of QoC KPIs and use three distinct datasets to analyze the ability of the KPIs to characterize network behavior, demonstrating the ability of QoC to offer a more fine-grained and useful representation of cellular coverage than possible with current metrics.
Paper Structure (35 sections, 8 equations, 25 figures, 5 tables)

This paper contains 35 sections, 8 equations, 25 figures, 5 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. The Need for QoC
  3. Quality of Coverage Framework
  4. QoC Key Performance Indicators
  5. Usability (U):
  6. Usability Persistence (P):
  7. Usable Performance Mean (M):
  8. Usable Performance Variability (V):
  9. Resilience (R):
  10. Spatial Aggregation of QoC Profiles
  11. Region-Level QoC Summarization.
  12. Enabling Policy-Driven Analyses.
  13. Datasets for QoC Characterization
  14. Synthetic Datasets
  15. Real-World Data
  16. ...and 20 more sections

Figures (25)

  • Figure 1: Actual measured download speeds at 52 locations claimed to be covered at 35 Mbps.
  • Figure 2: Illustration of QoC KPIs.
  • Figure 3: QoC KPIs in synthetic networks at different Usability Thresholds. (U: Usability; P: Persistence; M: Usable Performance Mean; V: Variability; R: Resilience)
  • Figure 4: Characterization ability of the QoC KPIs across synthetic environments. $\tau$= 5 Mbps.
  • Figure 5: Temporal QoC KPIs for real-world cellular measurements. $\tau=$100 ms.
  • ...and 20 more figures