Benin, Burkina Faso, Congo (DRC), Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Lesotho, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia
Context and Issues
Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) need to identify areas where it makes economic sense to install new base stations (BTS) in order to expand their reach. As they expand in rural areas, with lower population densities, the choice of location has to be done in a surgical manner to maximise ROI while reaching the underserved.
Solution
Radio propagation simulation tools were used to compute granular mobile coverage around BTS locations provided by MNOs.
Global geographic coverage was then overlapped with high-resolution population estimates (based on building footprints detected from satellite imagery) and granular socioeconomic data. The resulting composite geospatial dataset was finally used to source a web platform showing coverage maps with several functionalities like filter commands or statistics panels to access figures on coverage, population or socio-economic indicators (like uncovered population counts) at administrative area and settlement levels.
See example of public deliverable for the GSMA: https://www.mobilecoveragemaps.com