Long memory in patterns of mobile phone usage

Marcin Owczarczuk

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2012, vol. 391, issue 4, 1428-1433

Abstract: In this article we show that usage of a mobile phone, i.e. daily series of number of calls made by a customer, exhibits long memory. We use a sample of 4502 postpaid users from a Polish mobile operator and study their two-year billing history. We estimate Hurst exponent by nine estimators: aggregated variance method, differencing the variance, absolute values of the aggregated series, Higuchi’s method, residuals of regression, the R/S method, periodogram method, modified periodogram method and Whittle estimator. We also analyze empirically relations between estimators. Long memory implies an inertial effect in clients’ behavior which may be used by mobile operators to accelerate usage and gain additional profit.

Keywords: Long memory; Hurst exponent; Mobile; Telecommunication (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:391:y:2012:i:4:p:1428-1433

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2011.10.005

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