Linked Data defines a concept for publishing data in a structured form with
well-defined semantics and for relating this information to other datasets in the
Web. Out of this concept, a huge graph of interlinked data has evolved over time,
which is also known as the LOD Cloud. The telecommunications domain can
highly benefit from the principles of Linked Data as a step forward for exploiting
their valuable asset—the mobile network data. By semantically enriching mobile
network data according to those principles and correlating this data with the
extensive pool of context information within the LOD Cloud, network providers
might become capable of providing innovative context-aware services to their
customers.
Semantically enriched context-aware services in the telecommunications domain
require a semantic as well as topological description of mobile and WiFi networks
in combination with interlinks to diverse context sources. This description must
incorporate the positions of mobile network cells and WiFi access points, their
coverage areas, and neighbor relations, along with dynamic network context data
(e.g., the generated traffic in a cell). In addition, third-party context sources need to
be integrated providing location-dependent information such as popular points of
interest visited during certain weather conditions.
The core contribution of this thesis is the OpenMobileNetwork, which is a
platform for providing estimated and semantically enriched mobile and WiFi network topology data based on the principles of Linked Data. It is based on the OpenMobileNetwork Ontology consisting of a set of network context ontology facets that describe mobile network cells as well as WiFi access points from a
topological perspective and geographically relate their coverage areas to other
context sources. As another contribution, this thesis also presents Linked
Crowdsourced Data and its corresponding Context Data Cloud Ontology, which is
a crowdsourced dataset combining static location data with dynamic context
information. This dataset is also interlinked with the OpenMobileNetwork.