ORIGINAL COMPANY-CONTEXT PRACTICE
Forecast synthetic network demand with changing coverage
Original practice scenario: A hypothetical operator forecasts traffic after adding new cells. Historical growth mixes customer demand with changes in where traffic is measured.
Written for independent practice using company context; this is not a verified question from a company interview.
A REASONED APPROACH
Model answer.
Distinguish underlying demand growth from redistribution across a changing network. A new cell can shift existing traffic rather than create new customer activity.
Work through it
- Maintain effective-dated coverage and routing metadata, and construct stable regional aggregates alongside cell-level series to identify redistributed volume.
- Backtest using only information known at each planning date, including planned deployments as uncertain scenarios rather than confirmed future observations.
- Evaluate peak demand, intervals and capacity shortfall by region, comparing simple baselines and stress scenarios with delayed or cancelled deployments.
Tradeoffs to discuss
- Regional models are more stable across topology changes but can miss local bottlenecks; cell models need explicit treatment of network reconfiguration.
Common pitfalls
- Do not compare new-cell traffic with a fictional zero-demand history.
- Forecast accuracy and the cost of underprovisioning are separate evaluation targets.