A method operative with a radio access network, RAN, infrastructure (102, 302) disposed in a mobile communications network environment, the method comprising: obtaining data from a plurality of cellular aggregation units, CAUs, (304-1 to 304-N) forming the RAN infrastructure (102, 302), the data collected for individual CAUs (304-1 to 304-N) over a data collection period with respect to a plurality of variables; separating the data into a plurality of data frames, each data frame identified by an object identifier and corresponding to a respective individual CAU (304-1 to 304-N); performing data cleaning operations in a particular sequential order as follows: removing data frames that have less than a threshold number of rows for each data frame, wherein each row corresponds to a time point of the data collection period at which data for the plurality of variables is collected; removing sparse columns corresponding to variables from each data frame that have less than a select number of entries collected during the data collection period; removing data frames that have less than a select number of variables corresponding to a designated number of valid key performance indicators, KPIs, thereby obtaining a reduced dataset; and performing following operations for each remaining data frame of the reduced dataset to obtain a modified dataset therefrom: determining a modal value for each of remaining variables of the data frame; and if a particular variable contains a null value, replacing the null value with the modal value of the particular variable. obtaining data from a plurality of cellular aggregation units, CAUs, (304-1 to 304-N) forming the RAN infrastructure (102, 302), the data collected for individual CAUs (304-1 to 304-N) over a data collection period with respect to a plurality of variables; separating the data into a plurality of data frames, each data frame identified by an object identifier and corresponding to a respective individual CAU (304-1 to 304-N); performing data cleaning operations in a particular sequential order as follows: removing data frames that have less than a threshold number of rows for each data frame, wherein each row corresponds to a time point of the data collection period at which data for the plurality of variables is collected; removing sparse columns corresponding to variables from each data frame that have less than a select number of entries collected during the data collection period; removing data frames that have less than a select number of variables corresponding to a designated number of valid key performance indicators, KPIs, thereby obtaining a reduced dataset; and performing following operations for each remaining data frame of the reduced dataset to obtain a modified dataset therefrom: determining a modal value for each of remaining variables of the data frame; and if a particular variable contains a null value, replacing the null value with the modal value of the particular variable. removing data frames that have less than a threshold number of rows for each data frame, wherein each row corresponds to a time point of the data collection period at which data for the plurality of variables is collected; removing sparse columns corresponding to variables from each data frame that have less than a select number of entries collected during the data collection period; removing data frames that have less than a select number of variables corresponding to a designated number of valid key performance indicators, KPIs, thereby obtaining a reduced dataset; and performing following operations for each remaining data frame of the reduced dataset to obtain a modified dataset therefrom: determining a modal value for each of remaining variables of the data frame; and if a particular variable contains a null value, replacing the null value with the modal value of the particular variable. determining a modal value for each of remaining variables of the data frame; and if a particular variable contains a null value, replacing the null value with the modal value of the particular variable.