Three UK uses big data to direct network investments

Big data project started in 2009 starts to bear fruit - helping to site new mobile phone masts

Three UK, the mobile phone network, is using "big data" at the heart of its business to work out where to locate mobile phone masts and to help personalise the "experience" of its subscribers.

Speaking at Computing's Big Data Summit in London, Darren Sylvester, chief architect at Three UK, said that the company had started off with a project in 2009 called "Network Intelligence", to help the company better deal with the volumes of data the business was generating - both customer data and network data.

"There's no point storing data unless you are going to get value and action out of the insight," said Sylvester. "So we try to keep everything straightforward. Data can drive information and insight, and you then get to take action from that to drive value."

In particular, given the expense of rolling out and maintaining a mobile network, one of the keys for Three is to use the data gleaned from its network, which it now analyses closely, to gauge the quality of its network, growth in traffic and where, potentially, upgrades might be required before they become critical issues.

"Looking from a customer perspective, where customers are maybe not getting the speeds that they would like or we can see that in the future maybe they won't get the speeds, we can change our network rollout plans to make sure that we are making efficient use of our money - both for ourselves and in terms of giving customers a good experience," said Sylvester.

In other words, as a result of its project going back to 2009, Three is now able to use big data techniques in order to work out where investments in its network will achieve the best return - for both Three and its customers.