A Characterization of the COVID-19 Pandemic Impact on a Mobile Network Operator Traffic

During early 2020, the SARS-CoV-2 virus rapidly spread worldwide, forcing many governments to impose strict lock-down measures to tackle the pandemic. This significantly changed peoples mobility and habits, subsequently impacting how they use telecommunication networks. In this paper, we investigate the effects of the COVID-19 emergency on a UK Mobile Network Operator (MNO). We quantify the changes in users mobility and investigate how this impacted the cellular network usage and performance. Our analysis spans from the entire country to specific regions, and geodemographic area clusters. We also provide a detailed analysis for London. Our findings bring insights at different geotemporal granularity on the status of the cellular network, from the decrease in data traffic volume in the cellular network and lower load on the radio network, counterposed to a surge in the conversational voice traffic volume.