Cellular networks have become one of the critical infrastructures, as many services depend increasingly on wireless connectivity. Therefore, it is important to quantify the resilience of existing cellular network infrastructures against potential risks, ranging from natural disasters to security attacks, that might occur with a low probability but can lead to severe disruption of the services. In this paper, we combine models with public data from national bodies on mobile network operator (MNO) infrastructures, population distribution, and urbanity level to assess the coverage and capacity of a cellular network at a country scale. Our analysis offers insights on the potential weak points that need improvement to ensure a low fraction of disconnected population (FDP) and high fraction of satisfied population (FSP). As a resilience improvement approach, we investigate in which regions and to what extent each MNO can benefit from infrastructure sharing or national roaming, i.e., all MNOs act as a single national operator. As our case study, we focus on Dutch cellular infrastructure and model risks as random failures, correlated failures in a geographic region, and abrupt increase in the number of users. Our analysis shows that there is a wide performance difference across MNOs and geographic regions in terms of FDP and FSP. However, national roaming consistently offers significant benefits, e.g., up to 13% improvement in FDP and up to 55% in FSP when the networks function without any failures.

翻译：蜂窝网络已成为关键基础设施之一，因为众多服务日益依赖无线连接。因此，量化现有蜂窝网络基础设施对潜在风险的韧性至关重要——这些风险包括自然灾害和网络攻击，虽发生概率低，但可能导致服务严重中断。本文结合模型与来自国家机构的公开数据（涉及移动网络运营商基础设施、人口分布和城市化水平），在国家尺度上评估蜂窝网络的覆盖率和容量。我们的分析揭示了需要改进的潜在薄弱环节，以确保低水平断连人口比例和高水平满意人口比例。作为韧性提升方法，我们研究了各运营商在哪些区域以及何种程度上可从基础设施共享或全国漫游（即所有运营商作为单一国家运营商运作）中获益。在案例研究中，我们聚焦荷兰蜂窝基础设施，将风险建模为随机故障、地理区域关联故障以及用户数量激增。分析表明，各运营商和地理区域在FDP和FSP方面存在显著性能差异。然而，全国漫游始终能带来显著优势——例如在网络无故障运行时，FDP改善幅度可达13%，FSP改善幅度可达55%。