Abstract

This work utilises data from an Irish mobile phone network to provide a preliminary, but novel, analysis of the interurban communication network between twenty five of the largest cities and towns in Ireland. An intuitive technique is applied to a mobile phone operator’s call detail records to identify the actual subscriber population of different urban areas with various penetration rates. Weighted communication links are generated between the urban centres based on spatial and temporal metrics of distance, and are examined for different times of the day and for different days of the week. These communication links are compared to the output of a standard gravity model in order to ascertain the latter’s ability to accurately represent Ireland’s interurban communication network. The results obtained are presented and discussed within.