Products and applications have broad prospects. Big data empowers the information society.

Products and applications have broad prospects. Big data empowers the information society

The theme of this year’s May 17th World Telecommunications and Information Society Day is “Developing Big Data and Expanding Influence”. This is The International Telecommunication Union has set "Big Data" as its theme for the first time. Internet companies are the most active in developing big data. Similar to Internet giants such as BAT, the amount of data stored and managed by communication operators is also staggering. By turning data into tools, it becomes a "multiplier" for GDP.

Currently, the entire communication network is working hard to support greater data traffic and more terminal connections. The vision of the Internet of Everything brought by 5G will add tens of billions of connections to the entire communication network. These connections It is necessary to impart more wisdom through big data, cloud computing and other technologies to empower the entire information society.

Communication operators accumulate massive amounts of data

How to better leverage the value of data assets is a brand new topic for communication operators. Communication operators are the transmitters, producers and users of big data. Big data among operators can be divided into three main categories. The first category is signaling data in the CS (CircuitSwitch) domain, which mainly includes the user’s call record (CDR), SMS sending record, and other interaction records between the terminal and the network (such as the terminal’s startup message, location update message, authentication messages), etc.; the second category is IP packet data in the PS (PacketSwitch) domain. PS domain data mainly includes control plane and user plane data packet records when users access the Internet. Control plane data such as AAA authentication and authentication data packets, PDP creation, update, deletion, etc., user plane data is mainly the user's online record data; the third category is CRM data containing the user's personal attributes, mainly including the user's identity data, product ordering data, user consumption data, user payment data, user package data, user terminal data, etc.

At present, communication operators' ability to manage these data has reached a new level. Fan Jian, deputy general manager of China Unicom's Information Technology Division, told reporters that since China Unicom established a group-wide big data center in 2012, China Unicom has continued to strengthen and improve its internal data support capabilities while accelerating the construction of China Unicom's big data center. The data application open platform has formed the largest cloud-based big data platform in China other than BAT, and has accumulated massive amounts of data.

The storage capacity of this platform is now 85PB, and the computing power of the Hadoop cluster has reached nearly 4,500 nodes. The platform has concentrated the data of more than 410 million users across the country and GPS-level real-time location data, and has established a network covering 9 major Category, totaling more than 3,800 user tag systems; can easily identify 400 million URLs, 200,000 Internet products, approximately 4,200 mobile phone brands, and 105,000 terminal models; handles 548 billion online records and 67 billion daily Location information, 17 billion billing details. It can support more than 60 million internal data query services every month.

Fan Jian said that in terms of improving the level of data security, in 2015, the "China Unicom Data Service Security Management Measures" was issued to the entire group to strengthen data output and application supervision, and strictly control data quality and data Diffusion, effectively carry out data governance, ensure data security and quality, handle personal privacy protection (strictly control data authorization and application that can be traced back to individuals or terminals), so that data can only be used within a safe and controllable scope, and provide continuous, Stable and efficient big data operation services. In 2016, the data center as a whole passed the ISO27001 international data security standard certification, achieving the established information security goals, and there were zero information security and commercial secret information leakage incidents.

China Telecom also started early in big data. On November 4, 2014, under the leadership of China Telecom, 45 units including the Telecommunications Research Institute of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China Telecom, AsiaInfo, China Eastern Airlines, and the Internet Society of China jointly formed the China Enterprise Big Data Alliance. In November 2015, China Telecom officially released the big data open platform and the "Tianyi Big Data" brand, and launched four types of data-based products: precision marketing, risk prevention and control, regional insights, and consulting reports, as well as big data cloud platform products, focusing on Serving tourism, finance, advertising, government, transportation and other industries.

Big data products and applications

Broad prospects

China Unicom launched six types of big data products in 2016: WO Tag, WO Platform, and WO Credit Information , Wo Marketing, Wo Index and Smart Footprints. The first two products are positioned as general basic services, and the goal is to open China Unicom's data in the form of labels for partners to use on the Wo platform. The last four types of products belong to industry applications and provide specific services for specific industries.

Fan Jian said that among the six major products, WO Risk Control and WO Index have achieved great success and received enthusiastic responses from financial fields and Internet companies. In more than a year, we have developed more than 200 government and enterprise customers, including major ministries and commissions, as well as representative Internet companies; major insurance companies are particularly active in the financial industry, and many start-up companies and small and medium-sized enterprises have also taken advantage of it. China Unicom uses open data and platforms to develop and operate its own applications.

So far, China Unicom has formed credit risk control, WO index, precision marketing, user tags, capability open platform, smart footprint, WO advertising, WO tourism, and WO government big data*** Nine major products are included.

The tourism big data index jointly developed and released by China Unicom and the National Tourism Administration, the Telecommunications Fraud Prevention Sky Eye jointly developed and operated jointly with Tencent, and jointly developed and operated by China Merchants United Company The big data application of the Wo Credit score deployed in the respective businesses of both parties and the personal credit inquiry system launched in cooperation with China Telecom have achieved deep integration of data. Among them, the personal credit inquiry system launched in cooperation with China Telecom won the "Sima" Award Special Prize issued by the Ministry of Industry.

Risk prevention and control products are based on China Telecom user tag data and establish user credit models. They mainly serve financial institutions such as banks, insurance, credit reporting, and P2P. They are used in pre-loan risk prevention and control, loan risk management, It provides big data services in post-loan risk tracking and other aspects; regional insight products are based on China Telecom user location tag data and provide data services for road traffic, regional people flow analysis, commercial site selection analysis, smart city construction, smart tourism construction and other fields.

China Mobile uses big data to provide targeted poverty alleviation. The smart precision poverty alleviation system relies on China Mobile's IT and data resources and capabilities, and has functions such as precise identification, precise matching, precise assistance, and precise management and control. It can realize poverty-stricken organizations (counties/villages, etc.), poor households, and poor people. Accurate identification, the system can not only accurately display the data information of poor households, aid party members and cadres, etc. on the electronic screen, but also analyze the causes of poverty, work status, and education level of the poor through data charts, with pictures and texts, clear at a glance, and can be more accurate Develop poverty alleviation plans locally.

Communication operators

The development of big data is only the beginning

Telecom operators also face many challenges in developing big data. Fan Jian said that after four years of construction and operation, China Unicom has accumulated some experience in data concentration, platform construction, external opening and service operation, and has a certain leading position in the country. Compared with its domestic peers, China Unicom has four leading advantages: nationwide centralized data, data quality, platform scale and capabilities, and an integrated operation system that coordinates development between the group and its branches. "Compared with our foreign counterparts, it should be said that we have two advantages and one disadvantage: the amount of data and the breadth and depth of applications are far superior to those abroad; and in terms of technology, a large number of open source software used come from abroad."

At present, in view of the multi-industry business and data integration model required in "Internet +" or the Industrial Internet, first of all, in terms of opening up to the outside world, operators are too focused on banking, insurance, credit reporting and other fields, and in industrial manufacturing There are very few cases in other industries. Secondly, there is a lack of systematic top-level design like the big data in Germany's "Industry 4.0" or the industrial data space IDS, and it is like crossing the river by feeling the stones. The most important thing is the third point, that is, operators can only achieve limited data openness, but fail to achieve data sharing and multi-party data integration.

Fan Jian said that in order to prevent the proliferation of data, user personal information may be infringed, and the value of data cannot be sustained, China Unicom often adopts an "invite-in" approach in external data cooperation. (This is also a common situation among operators). This approach has two flaws: first, it is too me-centered, and the partners invited in are basically partners who have no data or who have data but are unwilling to share it; second, if everyone insists on this "invite in" model , cannot realize the integration of multi-party data, and cross-industry applications will not develop.

Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute, Europe’s largest applied scientific research institution with more than 20,000 researchers and 2 billion euros in research funding, launched and led the industrial data for digital innovation in German industry in the German “Industry 4.0” project. Space sub-project (IDS), this sub-project focuses on cross-industry data broker exchange and data applications. Its purpose is to convert scattered industrial data into a trusted data network space. It has currently received support from more than 30 key enterprises in Germany or internationally. Support, including many of the world's top 500 companies, such as the famous European insurance company Allianz, the largest IT service company Atos Origin, the world-renowned Bayer pharmaceutical company, the world's top accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, the German Technical Inspection Association TUV, and Volkswagen , heavy industrial companies Krupp, Thyssen, etc.

“The idea of ??decentralization in IDS eliminates the idea of ??concentrating data on one platform for integration and sharing, and lays the foundation for the sustainable and smooth development of big data.” Fan Jian said, “ Therefore, we are actively cooperating with the Fraunhofer Institute, hoping to learn from their experience to meet the needs of 30 Fortune 500 companies to develop in China, develop data transaction technology, and create a decentralized, certified partner The Chinese-style industrial big data network operated by China Unicom realizes China Unicom's development aspirations from "inviting in" to "going out", and realizes the aspirations of the three operators and many big data companies to enjoy the most win-win results in data cooperation. In addition, we are also cooperating with our strategic partner Telefonica in multiple dimensions.”

From the perspective of data resources or assets, Internet companies’ data are generally limited by their own business and data genes. , the scope and depth of its data are limited. Operators have unparalleled advantages in the field of big data that are unparalleled in other industries, mainly reflected in the following three aspects: First, scale. On the one hand, the data volume is large, and the data generated every day is calculated in petabytes, with rich and sufficient data sources; on the other hand, the data dimensions are comprehensive, including user behavior, geographical location, online behavior, movement trajectory, payment ability, consultation and complaints, etc. information; the second is accuracy. The network system can generate multi-dimensional behavioral information related to end users in real time, accurately reflecting user behavior status in real time. The third is continuity. Network data is continuously provided, continuous and traceable, and only depends on the storage strategy of the data, without interference from human factors. And through the cross-correlation of these different dimensions of data, more new data and new value can be created.

As an operator, although it has its own unique value in data resources, it does not mean that it is invincible by relying on its own data alone. Especially in cross-industry composite scenarios, correlation analysis of multiple data sources can produce greater value. This requires operators to also integrate a wider range of external data sources, including other industries, companies and government agencies.

The development of big data by communication operators is only the beginning. The entire communication network is working hard to support greater data traffic and more terminal connections. The vision of the Internet of Everything brought by 5G will add tens of billions of connections to the entire communication network. These connections require technologies such as big data and cloud computing. Giving more wisdom requires operators to empower the entire information society through continuous investment and in-depth industry analysis.