Ludmila Courtillat-Piazza

PhD Candidate




  • Presentation



Title of the thesis: Digital dependence and vulnerabilities in a context of ecological emergency addressed from the perspective of the resilience of mobile network.

Supervisors: Clément Marquet (CSI), Marceau Coupechoux (Telecom Paris) and Sophie Quinton (INRIA).

This PhD aims to explore collective dependencies on digital technologies and the vulnerabilities they may create, throughout the case study of mobile networks.

Indeed, the actual development of digital technologies may not be sustainable in the long term due to their negative environmental and social impacts. Meanwhile digital uses are multiplying and intensifying, which may lead to a global increase in dependency on digital technologies. This observation raises the question of the resilience of digital infrastructures, but also the question of the resilience of our societies in the face of a possible decline of the (unsustainable) development of these infrastructures. In this PhD, we will approach this question by studying the resilience issues of mobile telephony networks (3G, 4G, 5G).

First, we will develop a model to study the consequences of limiting the deployment of base stations on mobile networks. How can quality of service be maintained, what level of quality of service can be maintained and for how long?  We will then consider the question of the level of resilience of mobile networks required to ensure the resilience of our societies. More specifically, this question will be addressed by looking at the notions of resilience and quality of service that are manipulated by the various stakeholders involved in mobile networks (public authorities, operators, citizens’ groups, etc.). Finally, we will study the conditions (maintenance, redundancy, etc.) under which a given level of resilience and quality of service can be guaranteed.  We will take an interdisciplinary approach to all these issues, developing on mobile network modelling and performance evaluation on the one hand, and sociological research on the other.