Mapping 3G, one handset at a time

When Root Wireless launched its network performance mapping service last year, it had compiled detailed maps of the 2G and 3G networks of the big four carriers in eight of the country’s largest markets. Now it aims to complete the map throughout the country—with a little help.

At CTIA Wireless last month, Root launched a crowd-sourcing network monitoring app for the Android and BlackBerry smartphones, inviting mobile data users to compile the millions upon of millions of data points necessary to create a pervasive and timely snapshot of how the country’s mobile networks performed. Other companies and even the FCC have released network speed testing and performance applications, but the data resulting from them is often a hodgepodge and reporting capabilities limited. Rather than being a user-initiated app, Root’s crowd-sourcing software runs in the background, performing an automated series of tests every half hour and uploading the information to Root’s databases. The result is hundreds of different data points from each user every day, testing the network at different times and different locations. Combined they not only create a very detailed map, but a very up-to-date one, as the conditions of heavily trafficked cells get updated within minutes, Root CEO Paul Griff said.

"If we have a large enough group running this app we can not only create a ubiquitous map we can also drill down into the data deeper,” Griff said. “We can start tagging performance differences on different types of devices so we can not only identify who has the best network in any particular location, but which devices perform best on that network.”

In the two weeks after launch, Root has seen a lot of interest. Though Root isn’t releasing the number of downloads of the app, it reported receiving 1.25 million data points from users in the first 10 days of launch. Those data points come from the automated half-hourly sessions, which each generate 10 signal strength tests and 1 data capacity test, as well as a heavy-duty test a smartphone user can initiate, which generates 100 signal strength and 10 capacity tests with the touch of a button. Participants who download the app aren’t paid for their data mining except in having their curiosity satisfied, but considering the high-level of initial interest, Root is confident it can scale the platform to the roughly 200,000 subscribers it needs to map the four major operators’ networks completely, Griff said.

Due to the constant data stream from each device, Root only needs a small number of users to cover each market — in a perfect world, that is. “If you take a market the size of greater Boston, if we had perfect geographic distribution, we could cover it with 110 people per carrier,” Griff said. “But we don’t have perfect geographic distribution.” Users tend to clump in specific areas in particular markets as well as among the markets. So while 110 users would be more than enough to ensure downtown Boston was adequately mapped, Root needs a much bigger sample to ensure that the far-flung corners of the market are mapped on a timely basis, Root said. Nationwide, the problem is the same. Root has plenty of participants that it needs in New York or San Francisco, but of the 1.25 million data points its received so far, not a single one came from Montana.

Given those distribution discrepancies, Griff estimated Root will need about 50,000 participants for each operator’s network. Reaching 200,000 will become easier as Root expands its reach. Root plans on optimizing the App for other devices beyond those using Android and BlackBerry, and it plans to partner with other developers to embed its testing technology into other applications. It doesn’t offer the app for the most obvious platform yet, Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone, namely because it’s limited by the operating system’s inability to run background apps. While waiting for the next release of the iPhone software, Root is trying to work around the issue. “Apple has a an awfully big, awfully active and awfully vocal audience,” Griff said. “We need to address it.”