Investigation of RSRP distribution and coverage area mapcreation by natural neighbor interpolation method basedon 4G physical layer signals: case study in the cappadocia

Technological advancements have been progressing rapidly to meet the increasing demand while simultaneously facilitating daily life in numerous aspects. Among the most widespread areas of technological utilization are smartphones, devices that are now almost universally owned. The growing interest in smartphones and mobile communications has compelled operators to expand their infrastructure investments, both to support the evolution of generation (G) technologies and to ensure the delivery of these next-generation technologies to users. The continuous development and transformation of the smartphone supply market is largely driven by user demands for faster data upload/download speeds, higher resolution, and improved image quality. Each new technological innovation requires coordinated integration between the infrastructure (transmitters) necessary to deliver the technology and the advanced smartphones (receivers) capable of utilizing it Before the nationwide introduction of 4G technology in Turkey in April 2016, smartphones supporting 4G standards were already available on the market. Following this, operators carried out and implemented the required infrastructure upgrades, subsequently making the technology available to users. As these are new, advanced, and high-cost investments, deployment initially focused on highly populated metropolitan areas and then gradually vi expanded to other regions of Turkey. However, due to various technical and geographical factors, weak signals may still be encountered within the coverage areas of mobile services in both urban centers and rural zones. This often results in reduced data transmission speeds or even interruptions, leading users in such areas either to be unable to fully benefit from 4G services or to fall back on 3G standards. Cappadocia, located in Nevsehir province and recognized as one of Turkey's leading tourist destinations, hosts large numbers of domestic and international visitors. Mobile communication systems (e.g., base stations), which are among the infrastructure services provided to local residents, experience increased demand for data transmission due to the influx of visitors. Consequently, the extent to which service providers are able to meet this growing demand has been the focal point of this study. Accordingly, this research aims to measure the signal strength data of the three main operators in Turkey across the districts of Avanos, Urgup and Goreme within the Cappadocia region using the RantCell application. After fieldwork and subsequent data cleaning, the measurements were processed in the Matlab environment. Coverage maps for each operator were generated through the Natural Neighbor Interpolation method. The resulting maps were analyzed to identify strong and weak signal zones, evaluate the regional performance of operators, and, ultimately, determine the locations with weak signals across all three study areas. Based on these findings, recommendations for network improvement were developed.