Abstract: In an embodiment computer-readable training data records characterizing operation of a communication network may be used to train a machine learning (ML) model of network performance to predict expected performance characteristics, each training data record including operational features and observed performance characteristics of the communication network. The ML model may compute mappings of feature-values pairs to predicted performance characteristics. For a first subset of training data records, a fair distribution of first quantitative contributions of operational features of predicted performance characteristics may be computed, the first subset representing a baseline of observed performance characteristics. For a second subset of training data records, a fair distribution of second respective quantitative contributions of predicted performance characteristics may be computed, the second subset representing a problematic performance characteristic.