Using Machine Learning Technique for Telecom Service Providers in Malaysia to Prioritize Broadband Investment in Urban and Rural Areas

Authors

  • Taik Guan Tan University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus
  • Dino Isa
  • Yee Wan Wong
  • Jasmine PY Chen
  • Mei Shin Oh

Keywords:

Machine Learning, Curve Fitting, Genetic Algorithm, Support Vector Machine

Abstract

The companies that provide telecommunication services (Telco) in Malaysia commonly use the return on investment (ROI) model to strategize their network investment plans and to deploy their broadband services in their intended markets. The numbers of subscribers and average revenue per user (ARPU) are two dominant contributions to a good ROI. The rural areas are lacking both dominant factors and thus very often fall outside the radar of the Telco’s investment plans. The government agencies, therefore, shoulder the responsibility to provide broadband services in rural areas through the implementation of national broadband initiatives and regulated policies and funding for universal service provision. In this paper, we will outline a machine-learning technique which the Telco can use to plan for broadband investments in urban areas and beyond. The proposed technique predicts the socioeconomic potential of a geographical area in correspondence to its local characteristics. This technique is an empirical model that produces a correlation coefficient to quantify the statistical relationships between two or more values of local characteristics and socioeconomic potential. The model can help Telcos to prioritize their investments in urban and rural areas with higher potential for socioeconomic growth. By using this technique as a policy tool, Telcos will be able to prioritize areas where broadband infrastructure can be implemented using a government-industry partnership approach. Both public and private parties can share the initial cost and collect future revenues appropriately as the socioeconomic correlation coefficient improves. The proposed technique functions to formulate an empirical model using a curve-fitting software and to generate sufficient data using Genetic Algorithm to train a Support Vector Machine.

References

“Broadband: A Platform for Progressâ€, a report by the Broadband Commission for Digital Development, International Telecommunications Union, June 2011.

“11th Malaysia Planâ€, Malaysian Economic Planning Unit, Prime Minister’s Department, 2015.

Roller LH, Waverman L, “Telecommunications infrastructure and economic development: A simultaneous approachâ€, American Economic Review, 91: 909-923, 2001.

Kuppusamy, Raman & Lee, “Whose ICT Investment Matters to Economic Growth: Private or Public? The Malaysian Perspectiveâ€, The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, EJISDC, pp. 37, 7, 1-19, 2009.

Alice SHIU, Pun-Lee LAM, “Causal Relationship between Telecommunications and Economic Growth: A Study of 105 Countriesâ€, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, http://www.imaginar.org/taller/its2008/192.pdf

C Qiang, C Rossotto, K Kimura, “Economic impacts of broadbandâ€, Information and Communications for Development: Extending Reach and Increasing Impact, pp. 35–50, 2009.

N Czernich, O Falck, T Kretschmer, L Woessman, “Broadband infrastructure and economic growthâ€, CESifo Working Paper No. 2861, 2009.

Booz & Company, “Digitization for Economic Growth and Job Creation: Regional and Industry Perspectivesâ€, In The Global Information Technology Report, World Economic Forum, 2013.

Johan Bergendahl, “Broadband changes societyâ€, 2010, from Ericsson website: http://www.ericsson.com/news/101027_broadband_bergendahl_244218599_c

Katz, Raul L. and Koutroumpis, Pantelis, “Measuring Socio-Economic Digitization: A Paradigm Shiftâ€, TRPC, 2012. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2031531 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2031531

Nottebohm, Manyika, Bughin, Chui, Syed, “Online and upcoming: The Internet’s impact on aspiring countriesâ€, McKinsey & Company, 2012.

R.L. Katz, T.A. Berry, Driving Demand for Broadband Networks and Services, Springer and Communication Technology, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-07197-8_4, 2014.

Melih Kirlidog, “Financial Aspects of National ICT Strategiesâ€, In Sherif Kamel, E-Strategies for Technological Diffusion and Adoption: National ICT Approaches for Socioeconomic Development, p. 279, Information Science Reference, USA, 2010.

Tony Irawan, “ICT and Economic Development: Conclusion from IO Analysis for Selected ASEAN Member Statesâ€, EUROPEAN INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS, 2013.

Tony Irawan, “ICT and Economic Development: Conclusion from IO Analysis for Selected ASEAN Member Statesâ€, EUROPEAN INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS, 2013.

Mudiarasan Kuppusamy, Bala Shanmugam, “Information-Communication Technology and Economic Growth in Malaysia, International Association for Islamic Economicsâ€, Review of Islamic Economics, Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 87-100, 2007.

L Waverman, M Meschi, M Fuss, “The impact of telecoms on economic growth in developing countriesâ€, In Africa: The impact of mobile phones, The Vodafone Policy Paper Series, Number 2, pp. 10-23, 2005.

C Chakraborty, B Nandi, “Privatization, telecommunications and growth in selected Asian countries: An econometric analysisâ€, Communications and Strategies 52: 31-47, 2003.

Peter Stenberg, Mitchell Morehart, “Toward Understanding U.S. Rural-Urban Differences in Broadband Internet Adoption and Useâ€, In Yogesh Dwivedi, Adoption, Usage, and Global Impact of Broadband Technologies, p. 157. Information Science Reference, USA, 2011.

Karner J., Onyeji R., “Telecom private investment and economic growth: The case of African and Central & East European countriesâ€, Unpublished thesis, Jönköping University, Jönköping International Business School, JIBS, Economics, 2007.

Chatchai Kongaut, Ibrahim Kholilul Rohman, Erik Bohlin, “The economic impact of broadband speed: Comparing between higher and lower income countriesâ€, In Research project between the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the Institute for Management of Innovation and Technology (IMIT), Gothenburg, Sweden, 2012.

Karim Sabbagh, Bahjat El-Darwiche, Roman Friedrich, Milind Singh, “Maximizing the impact of digitizationâ€, Strategy&, PwC, 2012.

Melih Kirlidog, Stephen Little, “Regional – National ICT Strategiesâ€, In Sherif Kamel, E-Strategies for Technological Diffusion and Adoption: National ICT Approaches for Socioeconomic Development, p. 66. Information Science Reference, USA, 2010.

Background paper by the UNCTAD secretariat, Expert Meeting in Support of the Implementation and Follow-up of WSIS: USING ICTs TO ACHIEVE GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Geneva, 4-5 December 2006.

Peter Curwen, Jason Whalley, Telecommunications in a High Speed World – Industry structure, Strategic Behavior and Socio-Economic Impact, UK Gower Publishing, p211, 2010.

Cronin F.J., Parker E.B., Colleran E.K., Gold M.A., “Telecommunications infrastructure and economic growth: An analysis of causalityâ€, Telecommunications Policy 15, 529-535, 1991.

Cronin F.J., Parker E.B., Colleran E.K., Gold M.A., “Telecommunications infrastructure investment and economic developmentâ€, Telecommunications Policy 17, 415-430, 1993a.

Cronin F.J., Colleran E.K., Herbert P.L., Lewitzky S., “Telecommunications and growth: The contribution of telecommunications infrastructure investment to aggregate and sectoral productivityâ€, Telecommunications Policy 17, 677-690, 1993b.

Wolde-Rufael Y., “Another look at the relationship between telecommunications investment and economic activity in the United Statesâ€, International Economic Journal 21, 199-205, 2007.

R. Baker, G. Siemens, Educational data mining and learning analytics, Cambridge University Press, UK, 2014.

Sandra Lach Arlinghaus, PHB Practical Handbook of Curve Fitting. CRC Press, 1994.

F. Hu, Q. Hao, Intelligent Sensor Networks: The Integration of Sensor Networks, Signal Processing and Machine Learning, CRC Press, 2013.

Der-Chiang Li, Wen, I-Hsiang Wen, “A genetic algorithm-based virtual sample generation technique to improve small data set learningâ€, Neurocomputing. 143. pp. 222–230, 2014.

S. Haylin, Neural Networks A Comprehensive Foundation, Prentice Hall International, New Jersey, 1999.

X. Li, D. Lord, Y. Zhang, Y. Xie, "Predicting motor vehicle crashes using Support Vector Machine modelsâ€, Accident Analysis & Prevention, pp. 1611-1618, 2008.

N. Cristianini, J. Shawe-Taylor, An Introduction to Support Vector Machines and Other Kernel-based Learning Methods, Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Heng Fui Liau, Dino Isa, “Feature selection for support vector machine-based face-iris multimodal biometric systemâ€, Expert Systems with Applications, 2011.

Cheng et al., “Heuristic Methods for Reservoir Monthly Inflow Forecasting: A Case Study of Xinfengjiang Reservoir in Pearl River Chinaâ€, MDPI AG, Switzerland, 2015.

Kugan, “DiGi LTE Ready Tomorrow but Maxis & Celcom LTE ready nowâ€, from Malaysian Wireless website: https://www.malaysianwireless.com/2013/01/digi-lte-ready-maxis-celcom/, 2013.

P Prem Kumar, “Green Packet to reveal P1 buyer this monthâ€, from Free Malaysian Today website: https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/business/2014/02/13/green-packet-to-reveal-p1-buyer-this-month/, 2014.

Soyacincao, “Yes to roll out 4G WiMAX in East Malaysiaâ€, from Soyacincao website: http://www.soyacincau.com/tag/yes-coverage/, 2011.

Downloads

Published

2017-12-16

How to Cite

Tan, T. G., Isa, D., Wong, Y. W., Chen, J. P., & Oh, M. S. (2017). Using Machine Learning Technique for Telecom Service Providers in Malaysia to Prioritize Broadband Investment in Urban and Rural Areas. Asian Journal of Engineering and Technology, 5(6). Retrieved from https://ajouronline.com/index.php/AJET/article/view/5052