Abstract:
A customer service system is provided for responding to a service inquiry of a customer based on customer location data within a wireless cellular network having a plurality of current cell sites. A current cell site database includes geocoded site location data for each respective current cell site and statistical performance data for each respective current cell site. A complaint database stores user entered complaint records, each of the records including respective geocoded problem location data and a respective complaint note. A monitoring engine is coupled to the current cell sites and to the current cell site database for collecting the statistical performance data and transferring it to the current cell site database. A web server provides a user interface for accessing the current cell site database and the complaint database.

Description:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
   Not Applicable. 
   STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH 
   Not Applicable. 
   BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
   The present invention relates in general to performance monitoring in a wireless cellular telephone network, and, more specifically, to a tool for assisting customer service and maintenance personnel in responding to and alleviating customer inquiries or complaints. 
   Wireless cellular telephone networks deploy large numbers of cell sites within their coverage areas. Each cell site includes an antenna for transmitting and receiving radio signals over a respective geographic area. Coverage areas for adjacent cells overlap so that as a cellular subscriber moves from one cell to another a handoff can occur between cells. 
   There are various practical and economic concerns in locating and building each cell site. Various geographic features and the availability of real estate result in an irregular spacing of cell sites. In addition, the density of subscriber traffic (i.e., number of simultaneous users) in some regions requires cell sites to be packed at a higher density than in areas with a lower subscriber traffic volume. A higher cell site density results in an increase in the overlapping areas as well. 
   The actual coverage pattern for the antenna of any particular cell site is typically not the same in all directions because at any particular distance, various structures or geographic features may produce shadowing, for example. Moreover, a particular antenna pattern may be deliberately manipulated to provide some directionality using specialized antenna design and placement in order to compensate for the irregular spacing of cell sites. 
   In using a cellular telephone within the wireless network, performance issues such as dropped calls, blocked calls, or noisy calls inevitably occur. Cellular carriers typically provide customer service representatives for handling service inquiries and complaints from customers experiencing these problems. When a customer has experienced a performance problem in connection with a particular wireless telephone call, the customer doesn&#39;t know the identity of the cell site that handled the problem call. At best, the customer may provide an address or general description of the place where the problem occurred. Consequently, it has been difficult to relate service problems experienced by one customer with those of other customers. Furthermore, a customer service representative has not been able to determine for themselves or to inform the customer whether a particular performance issue is due to inadequate coverage of a particular location (i.e., the problem in that area is likely to persist), whether additional cell sites are planned in order to correct for a coverage hole, or whether a performance issue is due to a temporary network issue (i.e., the performance for that area is likely to improve at a later time). In addition, it has been difficult for the customer service representative to direct any corrective maintenance actions to appropriate technical personnel for handling in an efficient manner since there is insufficient information available to determine an identification of the cell site involved, whether the subscriber was in a coverage hole (i.e., whether service is even available at the location), or the current performance status of potential cell sites that may have handled the call. 
   SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
   The present invention provides the advantages of identifying the closest cell sites and whether the customer was within a known coverage hole based on a customer&#39;s description of a location. Utilizing a complaint log based on geographic location where the problem was experienced rather than on the identity of particular cell sites facilitates handling of inquiries and allows a more comprehensive analysis of network coverage issues and potential corrective actions. 
   In one aspect of the invention, a customer service system is provided for a wireless cellular network having a plurality of current cell sites. A current cell site database includes geocoded site location data for each respective current cell site and statistical performance data for each respective current cell site. A complaint database stores user entered complaint records, each of the records including respective geocoded problem location data and a respective complaint note. A monitoring engine is coupled to the current cell sites and to the current cell site database for collecting the statistical performance data and transferring it to the current cell site database. A web server provides a user interface for accessing the current cell site database and the complaint database in order to respond to a service inquiry of a customer based on customer location data. 
   In another aspect of the invention, a method is provided for assisting a user to respond to a service inquiry of a customer of a wireless cellular network. A location description is entered into a web server for a customer service system. Customer location data is generated according to a coordinate location format in response to the location description. Any existing complaint records in a complaint database are identified having geocoded trouble location data within a predetermined area around the customer location data. The identified complaint records are displayed to the user. Cell sites in a current cell site database are identified having geocoded site location data proximate to the customer location data and an identification of the cell sites are displayed to the user. The web server accepts a complaint note from the user describing a customer problem. A new complaint record is created for storing the complaint note and providing geocoded trouble location data corresponding to the customer location data. 

   
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       FIG. 1  is a block diagram of a customer service system according to one embodiment of the present invention. 
       FIG. 2  is a screen shot of a web page for entering a customer&#39;s description of a location. 
       FIG. 3  is a screen shot showing a portion of a retrieval web page based on the customer location data. 
       FIG. 4  is a screen shot showing another portion of the retrieval web page based on the customer location data. 
       FIG. 5  is a screen shot showing cell site locations proximate to a selected cell site along with statistical performance data on the selected cell site. 
       FIG. 6  is a screen shot showing a report of historical performance data for the selected cell site. 
       FIG. 7  is a flowchart showing a preferred embodiment of the present invention. 
   

   DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
   Referring to  FIG. 1 , a customer  10  desiring to make an inquiry or complaint concerning performance of the cellular network contacts a customer service representative  11 , typically via a telephone call either within the cellular network or otherwise. Using the customer support tool of the present invention, the customer service representative  11  interacts with a web server  12  via web page  13 . Web server  12  preferably includes a process engine  14  which is programmed to perform various processing tasks as described below. 
   Process engine  14  is connected to a geocoder  15 , a current cell site database  16 , a future cell site database  17 , a customer complaint database  18 , and a coverage hole database  19 . A monitoring engine  20  is connected to current cell site database  16  and to mobile switching centers (MSC&#39;s) which are in turn connected to the cell sites. In a preferred embodiment, process engine  14  resides on web server  12  along with geocoder  15  and databases  16 – 19 . When the user (i.e., customer service representative  11 ) enters a location description provided by customer  10  into web page  13 , process engine  14  is invoked for generating customer location data in a coordinate location format utilized by databases  16 – 19 . Preferably, databases  16 – 19  utilize geocoded location data in the format of a latitude and a longitude. In addition to latitude and longitude information, the cell site databases include other manually and automatically configured information such as statistical performance data, map image data, associated mobile switch data, and estimated dates of service for future sites. 
     FIG. 2  shows a web page for inputting a location description from a customer to initiate the operation of the customer service system tool. For example, the user may input a street address in a box  25 , a city name in box  27 , a state name in box  28 , and a zip code in box  29 . Alternatively, the user may input street names in boxes  25  and  26  thereby utilizing an intersection as the location description. The user then clicks a “find it” button  30  to invoke the geocoder and return customer location data in the desired format (e.g., latitude and longitude). Many geocoders are commercially available and are well known to those skilled in the art. 
   If a calling customer already knows a latitude and longitude where the complained of telephone service occurred, then these values may be entered into boxes  31  and  32  for identifying the customer location instead of street identifiers. Use of the geocoder may sometimes still be necessary in order to format the latitude and longitude information in the same way as is used by the databases. 
   After the geocoder generates customer location data in the desired format, a results web page is generated by the process engine and displayed to the user via a web page as shown in  FIGS. 3 and 4 . As shown in  FIG. 3 , a street identifier has been selected and the resulting geocoded latitude and longitude from the geocoder are shown in boxes  31  and  32 . A confirmation message  35  informs the user of the basis of the successful retrieval of geocode location data. A complaint table  36  is headed by a result message  37  identifying the number of times that the same geocoded location has been marked with a customer complaint within a predetermined period of time. Since complaints are not indexed by cell site, the complaints corresponding to locations within a predetermined distance of the customer location data are retrieved for table  36 . Table  36  includes a latitude column  38  and longitude column  39 , a time column  40 , and a note column  41 . Each row in table  36  represents a respective complaint record wherein columns  38 – 40  are automatically generated by the process engine and wherein the contents of note column  41  were manually entered by a previous customer service representative. Information such as the type of complaint, date and time of the complaint, and customer identification information may be entered for each note. 
   The web page in  FIG. 3  further shows a text box  42  for entry by the customer service representative of a note corresponding to the current complaint. Once a note is completed, the customer service representative clicks on a “mark this location” button  43  to initiate storage of a new complaint record in the customer complaint database. The web page also includes a coverage hole message  44  for indicating the results of a check of the current customer location data against the coverage hole database. Based on the coverage hole information, the customer service representative can advise the customer whether the complaint of performance arises from a coverage hole. 
     FIG. 4  shows a further portion of the web page automatically created in response to entry of the customer location (e.g., revealed by scrolling down from the view shown in  FIG. 3 ). A current cell site table  45  displays cell sites having geocoded site location data which are proximate to the customer location data. Likewise, a table  46  displays future cell sites having geocoded site location data proximate to the customer location data. For each table, the process engine may preferably identify those cell sites within a predetermined distance of the customer location coordinates. Alternatively, a fixed predetermined number of sites which are the closest to the customer location coordinates may be displayed. In yet another alternative, a predetermined number of the closest cells may be displayed that are within a predetermined distance (e.g., up to a maximum number of cell sites may be displayed provided there are that many cell sites within the predetermined distance). 
   Table  45  includes a column  50  for providing a cascade identifier (i.e., a network address for the cell site), a column  51  for providing an identification of the mobile switch to which each cell site is coupled, a column  52  for identifying a cell number assigned within the wireless cellular system, a column  53  for indicating a map within the map image database containing the cell site, a column  54  for providing the distance in kilometers between the customer location and the cell site, a column  55  for providing the distance in miles between the customer location and the cell site, a column  56  for providing the distance in feet between the customer location and the cell site, a column  57  for indicating the direction of the cell site from the customer location, and a column  58  for providing a link to a web page containing a 72-hour history of the statistical performance data for each cell site. The identifiers in column  50  are configured as links to a web page containing a map with the cell site located thereon to be presented along with current statistical performance data as described below. 
   Table  46  presents data concerning future, upcoming cell sites so that the customer service representative can inform a customer in the event that coverage in the identified location is scheduled to improve. Table  46  includes a cascade ID provided in a column  60 , a map identification in column  61 , a distance measurement in kilometers in column  62 , a distance measurement in miles in column  63 , a distance measurement in feet in column  64 , a direction from the customer location to the future cell site in column  65 , an estimated on-air date for each future cell site in column  66 , and a date of issuance of a notice to proceed with construction in column  67 . Cascade IDs for future cell sites in column  60  are configured as links which generate a web page including the map containing each future cell site. 
     FIG. 5  shows a web page reached by clicking a cascade ID of a cell site. A preexisting map image is presented that includes the selected cell site. A map  70  presents a color representation of the plotted location of each respective current and future cell site wherein future cell sites are indicated by a particular color as shown in a legend  71 . Current cell sites are shown in a different color as shown by legend  71 . The cell site of interest (i.e., the cell site having the cascade ID which was selected by the user) is shown according to a spectrum of colors representing the overall performance status of the cell site with the color indicating whether good, marginal, or poor performance is currently manifest. In addition, a summary box  72  is superimposed over a portion of the map adjacent to the current cell site of interest (i.e., the one selected by the user) to provide a summary of statistical performance data at the current time including a call block rate, a call drop rate, a call success rate, and the number of call attempts. Data are provided for a predetermined period of time, such as the previous one hour.  FIG. 6  shows a web page generated in response to selection of the link for a 72-hour history corresponding to a cell site of interest. As shown in  FIG. 6 , other information presented may include worst case conditions extracted from the table as well as a link to other reports for longer time periods. 
   Turning now to  FIG. 7 , a preferred method is shown wherein the user enters location data received from a calling customer in step  80 . The location data from the customer such as cross streets or address are converted to a geocode representation in step  81 . Using the geocode representation, the present invention identifies and displays recent complaints within a predetermined area around the customer location in step  82 . In step  83 , a check is made to determine if there is a match to a coverage hole database for the current location and the result of the comparison is displayed on the web page. 
   In step  84 , the current cell site database is consulted to identify cell sites within a predetermined area or distance from the customer location and the current, on-air cell sites are displayed. Likewise, in step  85  the future cell site database is consulted to identify future cell sites within the predetermined area and they are displayed. From an initial web page, the user then has several options as shown. In step  86 , the user keys-in a problem description and enters it into the complaint database. In step  87 , the user selects a cell site ID in order to display a map showing current and future cell sites in the area as well as presenting summary data if a current cell site is selected. In step  88 , the user selects a cell site history link and thereby retrieves and displays statistics for a chosen site.