Nielsen Mobile Network Signal Polling
Tracking Monthly Competitive Share Movements
The industry standard for measuring operator share of mobile and wireline subscribers
Nielsen Mobile was founded in 1998 to commercialize measurement technology that tracks changes in mobile subscriber counts at the metro level. This unique measurement platform has become the flagship of Nielsen Mobile's business. We have invested tens of millions of dollars in proprietary systems to produce highly accurate subscriber counts each month in over 65 metro markets. The system is covered by multiple patents in the US and internationally, and has recently been expanded to measure wireline subscriber share.

Nielsen Mobile measures subscriber counts by passively querying the ownership and assignment status of millions of phone numbers. By performing these monthly tests, Nielsen Mobile registers very small changes in subscriber market share and calculates subscriber additions and deactivations. The accuracy of Nielsen Mobile's measurements has been validated in hundreds of comparisons with data from Nielsen Mobile's wireline and mobile operator clients. These metrics have become the telecommunications industry standard for competitive sales data based on their proven precision.

How it Works:
Panel Design and Management
Nielsen Mobile creates a panel that is representative of the population of wireless and wireline phone numbers owned by the operators in each market. These panels are constantly refreshed to reflect new and changed number range allocations across operators.

Monthly Testing
Each month Nielsen Mobile initiates over 8 million queries to determine the ownership and assignment status of a representative sample of wireless and wireline subscribers. These queries harvest underlying network signaling information to provide a definitive read of number ownership and assignment status without impacting operator networks or end-subscribers.

Analysis and Metrics
Nielsen Mobile then processes, analyzes and projects these test results to produce measurements of share movements in the entire metro area. Metrics are delivered to clients in a variety of formats and can be cut to reflect the custom footprints and operating regions of Nielsen Mobile clients.

Share of Gross Adds, Mid-Tier Northeast Market
Share of Gross Adds, East Coast Market
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Over 65 mobile markets tracked monthly; 100+ smaller metro markets tracked quarterly or bi-annually
Top 15 landline markets measured monthly
Sample sizes are 2-3 orders of magnitude larger than is possible with a survey
Patented technology approach ensures accurate representation with zero sample or response bias
Unprecedented accuracy facilitates granular and longitudinal measurements
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