4G Cellular Network Deployment

Proceedings of the IOARP International Conference on Communication and Networks (ICCN 2015)

Social Aspectsof 3G/4G Cellular Network Deployment in Pakistan Sardar Aadilur Rehman1, Munam Ali Shah2, Sijing Zhang3 1,2

Department of Computer Science, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan. 3 Department of Computer Science & Technology, University of Bedfordshire, Luton, UK. 1

[email protected]. [email protected]. 3 [email protected].

2

Abstract The smartphone looks the most appropriate communications technology in today's global world. Through this, people can connect to other people for different purposes, e.g., business, commerce, social networking and education etc. The success story of 2nd Generation of wireless mobile communication has been tremendous in Pakistan. The recently launched 3G and 4G cellular technologies in the country offer higher data rates and more connectivity options. In this paper, our contribution is two-fold. Firstly, we investigate the social impacts of 3G/4G cellular networks in Pakistan. Secondly, we conduct a survey about the appropriateness of the technology in the country from social aspects. The survey reveals some interesting results which could be used by service providers and policy makers to make the 3G/4G experience more beneficial. Keywords: Social aspects of 3G/4G, 4G cellular network, social networking.

ICCN 2015, 18-19 December, London, United Kingdom Proceedings Appeared on IOARP Digital Library: 15 March 2016 IDL-ICCN15-005 DoI: ISSN: Copyright 2016 IOARP

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1. Introduction Use of a communication technology is an essential part of everyone’s life. This enables us in connecting with any other in the global village. We used cables to connect to the Internet, but since the inception of the radio technology, the best connectivity option is a wireless mobile communication [1].As technology make our social life easy and fast, every user wants faster speed and lesser cost to avail all available Internet services and resources everywhere and every time. We see that this demand can only be fulfilled by 3rd and 4th generation (3G/4G) of cellular networks[2][3]. It has been observed that the 4G cellular network improves the communication in social circle. There are more accounts on Twitter than before, terabytes of videos are downloaded and uploaded daily by users and billions of messages are exchanged on social websites [4]. The education sector has also benefitted from the high speed connectivity and quality of services (QoS) offered by 4G cellular networks. Online classrooms, webinars, live interaction of teacher-student and online exams are a few of the benefits that has accelerated the education and e-learning sector towards improvement. The media and TV channels are also making full use of the technology which has enabled the viewer to have access to the latest news around the world. Through high speed of 4G wireless network, user gets live streaming of latest event happening around. This live coverage for any event could be carried out with minimum cost. In healthcare prospective, the 4G technology has enabled the doctors to access patients’ records remotely. A surgeon can monitor a surgical operation while sitting in his/her home. The doctor can also obtain real time images and can participate in live video streaming with patient and can check its current status and diagnose problem and can recommend medicines[5]. There are lot of software which helps doctors to diagnose problems. For example, physicians can use an iPhone 4s Face Time video conferencing feature for patient care. Other applications include a blood pressure monitor that displays the recent pressure reading, at the same time track preceding results[6]. There are some tools available which send data to online storage and compare their results and give output. Through fast 4G wireless this whole process complete in less time.Time and space are most significant barriers between healthcare providers and their patients[7]. Patients are often physically remote to suitable healthcare providers either in rural areas, accident scenes, on their way to a hospital, in a flight, etc. With the beginning of high bandwidth telecommunication technologies, time and space barriers are broken down, now it is possible to bring audio, video, and data in real-time at any time and everywhere needed[5]. Another important aspect of 4G wireless is business environment which needs fast and reliable communication[8]. The growth and success of the business are very much dependant on fast, rapid and reliable connectivity with other businesses and organizations. The objective of this paper is to discuss the social aspects of 3G/4G cellular networks in Pakistan. The rest of the paper is organized as follow. Section 2 reviews the related work. Section 3 discusses the survey questionnaire and the results we obtained. We present our findings in Section 4. The paper is concluded in Section 5.

2. Related Work The innovative turn down in price and complexity of computers, laptops and mobile phone has changed the whole statistics of Internet users [1]. With the high speed Internet connectivity options, users can access the Internet everywhere and any time. The legacy 2G and 2.5G cellular networks did not offer data connectivity. The demand of high data rates is fulfilled by the new 3G technology and the state of the art 4G cellular technology. Both the 3G and 4G cellular networks allow a user to use Internet on the cell phone as well as on the computer. Some of the other features and objectives of a 4G technology are to become a completely IP-based integrated system [3] and to give speed between 100Mbps and 1Gbps in both at home and out-of-home, with top quality and high security [9]. We briefly review these distinct features of 4G technology below.

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2.1. High performance It provides high speed as compare to other generation. It provides more than 100Mbps speed wireless download which is almost 50 times greater than 3rd generation. With this highest speed user can access and download HD(high definition)video[10].

2.2. Interoperability and easy roaming 4G provides a global standard that gives universal mobility. Whereas 3G provides multiple standards which makes difficult to interpret across multiple network [11]. Different heterogeneous wireless access networks normally vary with conditions of coverage, data rate, latency, and loss rate [12]. Thus, each of them is almost designed to support an unusual set of precise services and devices, 4G will include various types of terminals, which may have to give ordinary services in parallel of their capabilities.

Fig. 1. Emergence of 4thGeneration [2]

2.3. Fully converged services If user wants to access the Internet everywhere through his/her smartphone, he/she is free to doin 4G which delivers connectivity smart and supple enough to support streaming video, e-commerce, Web browsing, e-mail, and location-based services [13]. This means freedom for customers [14].

2.4. Low cost 4G systems will prove far cheaper than 3G, since they can be built atop presented networks and won't need operators to fully retool and won't need carriers to buy the expensive extra spectrum. In addition to creature a lot more cost efficient, 4G is spectrally proficient, so carriers can do more with less. Release of 4G cellular network has changed the scenario of social networking and connecting with the world. The high speed encourages user to use Internet in their handheld devices [15]. As result of this people share their personal information to other people in social site [16] with their friends and with people whom they know.

2.5. Healthcare Wireless technology has many advantages into healthcare like providing data accuracy, reducing medical errors, and normally improving patient care.Healthcare professionals can obtain patient information from hospital's information system through wireless on any given location. They can access any information related to patient for example lab result, patient history, etc. from hospital’s information system. Which increase medical resources and improve the quality of patient care [3].

2.6. Social Networking Facebook is social website, there everybody knows each other. Majority of people use internet and Facebook in a positive way and some people use Facebook and internet in negative way. In European Countries many dating websites, there people meet each other but as a Muslim and Islamic Republic of Pakistan it’s not good thing. In Pakistan cyber crime is increasingly higher via Face Book in Karachi the 40


most of the targeted killing and kidnapping done[18,19, 20] via Facebook. The solution above problem is that people add those people whose know in their real life.By the use of social network people can purchase and order online shopping because many online purchasing website give advertises on social network [5]. Despite the fact that 3G and 4G cellular networks offer new and exciting features but there are some security vulnerabilities and privacy issue associated. There has been many incidents that led towards a planned crime and it became possible only due to the latest cellular technologies offered in Pakistan. Are the people of Pakistan aware of the side effects of these newly deployed technologies? This has been our main focus which we have thoroughly investigated in next section.

3. Surveying Social Aspects of 3G/4G cellular network in Pakistan The 3G/4G cellular networks have been deployed in the country last year. How has the lives of citizens been impacted by the launch of these technologies, this has been surveyed. The usefulness of these technologies has been investigated by conducting a survey questionnaire from approximately 200 people of belonging to different age groups, gender and occupation. The y-axis in the graphs would always represent number of participants. Our first question is about gender. The result of first question is approximately 40% female and 60% male. Second question is about occupation. Form this question we divide people into four categories. These are student, IT Professional, academic staff and Non-IT/Other. In Fig. 2 we show how many students, IT professionals, academic staff and Non-IT are male and female.We see that there are approximately 60% student and the rest of 40% belongs to other fields of life. 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Femal

Student

Male

IT professional Academic Staff

Non IT/Other

Fig. 2. Relation of Occupation Our next question in survey is about the area (city) which the participant lives in. There are possibly three options Urban, Sami urban, Rural. Fig. 3 shows the relationship between residential area and occupation of the participants.

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100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Rural Sami Urban Urban

Student

IT professional

Academic Staff

Non IT/Other

Fig. 3. Living Area and occupation The next question which is the most important question we asked is about the type of cell phone currently used. There are three options touch screen, simple phone and smartphone. Through this question we conclude our result at last of this section. Fig. 4 shows the relation between occupation and phone type. In this graph we clearly show that lot of people approximately 70 to 75 percent have smartphone. 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Smartphone Simple phone Touch screen

Student

IT professional

Academic Staff

Non IT/Other

Fig. 4. Phone type relation Another question of our survey is, “Are you aware of these features of smartphone”? There are ten options of this question. For example web-browsing, email checking, free voice call, social sites etc. In Fig. 5, we can observe that there are lots of people who know all of these features and there are only few who know only one feature. So we can say that people know lot of feature of smartphone. 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Female

Web browsing

E-mail checking

Male

Gaming

Free voice All of Above calls (Skype,Viber)

Some of These

Fig. 5. Features of Smartphone

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Next question is which Internet connectivity option you use most. There are three option of this question one is cellarer data second is wi-fi and third is blue-tooth. Fig6 shows graphof this question in which we clearly see that 70% people use wi-fi, 13% use blue tooth and 17% use cellarer data. 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

70%

17%

Cellarer Data 2G/2.5G

13% Blue tooth

Wi-Fi

Fig. 6. Connectivity options used. We asked another question about the speed of the Internet. Question is that how long would you expect to wait for a web page to load? The options of this question are 2 seconds, 4 seconds, 6seconds, more than 6 seconds. Fig. 7 shows graph between connectivity options and wait for page loading. In this graph we clearly see that most of people would not like to wait more than 6 seconds. So people need speed of internet in their Smartphone. 100 90 80

Cellarer Data 2G/2.5G

70 60

Wi-Fi

50

Blue tooth

40 30 20 10 0 2 Seconds

4 Seconds

6 Seconds

more than 6 seconds

Fig. 7. Wait for page loading. Next question is also related to speed and peoples reaction when the webpage slows to load, question is if mobile web page takes too long to load, what you do? The option of this question is Refresh the page, close the page, wait for loading, close and try again. Fig. 8 shows people reaction about slow loading web-page. In this graph we clearly show that only 11% people are that which wait to load page in slow internet speed. 12% will close and try again and 14% those who close the page and rest of 62% refresh the page. If we conclude this, we can say that maximum people need fast Internet speed in their smartphone.

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100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

62%

11% Wait for loading

12% close and try again

14% close the page

Refresh the page

Fig. 8. Slow page loading reactions Another question asked is which of the problem user normally face in their Smartphone? Option of this question is webpage slow to load, loading error, No Problem, Other. This question is also related to speed. If speed is slow then what problems occur? In Fig. 9 we see that 70% people would face a slow loading webpage. And 20% is those who face loading error problem and only 7% feel no problem. If we conclude result of this question we can say, if we increase speed of internet, almost 85% will feel no problem. 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

70%

20% 7% Webpage slow to load

Loading Error

No Problem

2% Other

Fig. 9. Problems in Smartphone Next question of our survey is do you agree that internet speed plays an important role in your Smartphone? The options of this question are 100 % agree, 70 – 80 % agrees, 40 – 60 % agrees and disagree. Fig. 10 shows maximum people is agree that internet speed plays important role in Smartphone, only 2% are those who are not agree that internet speed plays an important role. 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

58%

27% 13% 2% 100 % agree

70 – 80 % agree 40 – 60 % agree

Disagree

Fig. 10. Internet speed importance 44


In our survey, we ask another question, “Are you aware of 3G/4G deployment in Pakistan”? The numerical results obtained are plotted in Fig. 11 which shows that maximum people know that the technology is launching soon and will enhance users’ smartphone experience. 100 90

I know its coming

80

I have heard about it

70

I don’t know it

60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Agree

I don’t know

don’t agree

Fig. 11. 3G/4G enrich Smartphone The next question of our survey is very important which is that, do you think 3G/4G deployment will effect out social lives? There are three options of this question. One is Will improve our social circle second is will not Improve/no effect and third is Negative effect. In Fig. 12 shows result of this question.In graph which is shown in Fig. 12, 69% consider that when 3G/4G come, it will improve our social circle. But 22% are those who say that it will not improve or no effect in their social circle. And 9% are those who consider that it will negatively effect in their social circle. 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

69%

22% 9% Will improve my social circle

will not Improve/no effect

Negative effect

Fig. 12. 4G impact on social lives Now the last question which is the most important question of our survey is that when 3G/4G launches, what will be their reaction? The options of this question are: ‘not buy’;‘will let others to buy first’;‘will compare the cost first’; and ‘will instantly buy. Fig. 13 shows the responses about this question. In this graph, we clearly see that only 3-4 people who can’t buy 3G/4G services rest of all will buy 3G/4G when it deploy in Pakistan. And almost 60% are those who say that they instantly buy. There are 12% to13% who say that will let other to buy first. Mean that they will check the service availability and speed. If they provide good service, then these 13% will also buy 3G/4G and 17% to 18% are those whose consent about price. If 3G/4G gives cheap prices, then they also buy 3G/4G.

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100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Not buy

Will let other to buy Will compare the cost first first

Instantly buy

Fig. 13. Respond of the users

4. Summary and Findings We find that 69% people are committed that 3G/4G deployment in Pakistan will improve their social lives. One other important question is that, will they buy or not? We compare this question with another question in which we ask what type cell phone they have. In Fig. 14, we clearly see that only 1% to 2% are those who are not willing to buy 3G/4G. We also see that 80% of them who do not have a smartphone are willing to wait for 3G/4G deployment and they intend to buy smartphone and 3G/4G services. 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Touch screen Simple phone Smartphone

Not buy

Will let other to Will compare the buy first cost first

Instantly buy

Fig. 14. Cell type and reaction

5. Conclusion In this paper, we presented our findings about the launch of 3G/4G cellular networks in Pakistan and conducted a survey to reveal its social aspects. It has been found that citizens of Pakistan, especially the youth, has been anxiously waiting for the 3G/4G launch in the country. It is expected that the number of 3G/4G network subscribers will increase in near future. Another important finding is that the people in Pakistan foresee that their social circle will be improved and they will have more chances to frequently communicate with their peers. Furthermore, there are people who think that the negative impacts of 3G/4G cellular network deployment could not be ignored. In future, we will explore how modern cellular network technologies can impose negatively in the Pakistan society and will propose solutions for the better use.

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