Characterizing cellular network performance is complex. Current representations of cellular coverage, such as service provider and FCC coverage maps, focus only on the minimal level of available bandwidth (e.g., 35/3Mbps download/upload speed for 5G) and omit critical dimensions of quality: network usability and stability over space and time. Because cellular performance can vary substantially along both dimensions, a more fine-grained characterization is necessary. We introduce Quality of Coverage (QoC), a novel multi-dimensional set of key performance indicators (KPIs) that capture measured temporal and spatial performance quality, usability and stability. To evaluate QoC, we first analyze whether the QoC KPIs accurately reflect expected network behavior at individual locations and across spatially-aggregated regions. Then, we apply QoC to more than 15 million measurements from a production network to evaluate its ability to characterize real-world network behavior. Together, our results demonstrate the need for KPIs that capture the full spectrum of cellular performance and show how QoC enables rigorous evaluation of coverage quality across multiple geographic scales.

翻译：表征蜂窝网络性能是一项复杂任务。目前服务提供商和FCC覆盖图等对蜂窝覆盖的表示方法，仅关注最低可用带宽水平（如5G下载/上传速度35/3Mbps），忽略了质量的关键维度：网络在空间与时间上的可用性与稳定性。由于蜂窝性能在这两个维度上可能存在显著差异，因此需要更细粒度的表征方法。我们提出覆盖质量（QoC）——一套新颖的多维关键性能指标（KPI）体系，用以量化测得的时域与空间域性能质量、可用性及稳定性。为评估QoC，我们首先分析QoC的KPI能否准确反映单个位置及空间聚合区域内的预期网络行为。随后将QoC应用于来自生产网络的超过1500万次测量数据，评估其表征真实网络行为的能力。综合结果表明：需要能够捕捉蜂窝性能全貌的KPI，同时验证了QoC如何支持跨多地理尺度对覆盖质量进行严格评估。