Apparatus and method for network based wireless network test

摘要

A method and an apparatus for network based wireless network test which allows wireless network operators to reduce the manpower and resource used in traditional drive test task by utilizing existing data in the network and the trend that more and more mobile devices can provide precise location and mobile applications/services are requesting location related information near users or reporting user location information. By associating the right event logs data extracted from control plane with location information extracted from user plane, this method can generate drive test like results with highly accurate geographical information and correspondent wireless signal measurements. Furthermore, this method is applicable to all generation of the wireless network as long as the necessary data are available.

主权项

1. A method for network based wireless network test, which is implemented in a wireless network system that comprises a wireless network capable of providing communication services to a plurality of mobile devices, said method comprising:
step (A): using a wireless network test apparatus to retrieve control plane data and user plane data; the control plane data including a plurality of radio performance information regarding to radio performances of connections when at least some of the mobile devices connect to the wireless network; the user plane data including a plurality of location related information regarding to locations of at least some of the mobile devices when these mobile devices connect to the wireless network; step (B): the wireless network test apparatus parsing the control plane data and the user plane data in order to obtain the radio performance information from the control plane data and to obtain the location related information from the user plane data, said location related information including a plurality of valid location related information; step (C): the wireless network test apparatus merging the radio performance information with the location related information in such a manner that each of the valid location related information is paired with a corresponding radio performance information that is regarding to the same mobile device; and step (D): the wireless network test apparatus generating merged results that comprise at least the paired radio performance information and valid location related information; wherein the user plane data are the data that mobile devices transmit to retrieve location related information; the user plane data are firstly transmitted by the mobile device and then retrieved from at least one of the following: network elements and probes; and wherein, in step (C), the valid location related information is paired with a corresponding radio performance information based on a session information and a time information; the session information is used to pair the user plane data with correspondent control plane data, and the time information is used to pair the valid location related information with corresponding radio performance information.