Unsatisfied today, satisfied tomorrow: A simulation framework for performance evaluation of crowdsourcing-based network monitoring

Network operators need to continuously upgrade their infrastructures in order to keep their customer satisfaction levels high. Crowdsourcing-based approaches are generally adopted, where customers are directly asked to answer surveys about their experience. Since the number of collaborative users is generally low, network operators rely on Machine Learning models to predict the satisfaction levels/QoE of the users rather than directly measuring it through surveys. Finally, combining the true/predicted users satisfaction labels with information on each user mobility (e.g, which network sites each user has visited and for how long), an operator may reveal critical areas in the network and drive/prioritize investments properly. In this work, we propose an empirical framework tailored to assess the quality of the detection of under-performing cells starting from subjective user experience grades. The framework allows to simulate diverse networking scenarios, where a network characterized by a small set of under-performing cells is visited by heterogeneous users moving through it according to realistic mobility models. The framework simulates both the processes of satisfaction surveys delivery and users satisfaction prediction, considering different delivery strategies and evaluating prediction algorithms characterized by different prediction performance. We use the simulation framework to test empirically the performance of under-performing sites detection in general scenarios characterized by different users density and mobility models to obtain insights which are generalizable and that provide interesting guidelines for network operators.