Mobility

99.9999% How many nines are enough in mobile?

All of us have probably heard of the saying "Five Nines" which means 99.999% system availability and is the mythical reliability target often quoted as a goal to achieve when running a computer system or service. There is a larger debate on what the number means, if it is only the "network" or if it should include applications, servers, etc.

I'm not going down that debate path today other than to state the obvious that the "more nines" the better. Instead I would like to use the standard availability table to describe one of the hidden realities that currently exists with mobile services. So first let's start with the table:

99.999% is 5 minutes of downtime per year, and 90% is 36.5 days of downtime per year.

So now the question is:

Would it be acceptable for a production mobile service to only be available 90% of the time?

Surprisingly Keynote has seen examples of this low level of service from even the most well known of companies. One of the most problematic areas seems to be SMS services and especially short code programs.

A short code is where you text message a special keyword or phrase like "Pizza 98065" to a number similar to a cell phone number. This number routes your keywords to an application which then returns some form of answer back to your handset. There are many examples of short code text messaging programs for looking up stock quotes, checking the weather, looking up an account balance, checking your airline flight, etc.

I think most people would have a "reasonable expectation" that when they send out a text message to a short code, some form of answer will be returned to them in a time-frame that is useful. If you are trying to look up your checking account balance so you know if it is possible to use your debit card in order to make a purchase, most people would expect the answer to come back in a few minutes or less, not hours from when the request was sent.

Keynote is able to monitor the performance and availability of any type of short code program. We were very surprised to see examples of short code services from major/giant/well-know companies where the success rate of the short code request is at the 90% level or lower. This means that over the course of the year, that service isn't working for over 1 full month of time.

To be fair, the types of common problems we are seeing aren't always coming from the actual application behind the short code, but instead problems are coming from the SMS aggregators processing the messages. The SMS aggregator is the intermediate party (company) sitting between the network operator (AT&T/Sprint/Verizon/T-Mobile) and the actual application that processes the keywords recognized by the short code.

When you vote via text message on a TV show, your text message flows from the network operator to a SMS aggregator, which then routes your text message to the owner of the application processing your vote. The message you get back saying "Thanks for your vote...." follows the reverse path, from the application owner, to the aggregator, and then back on to the operator network and then finally to your mobile device. There are many other examples of short code promotions that follow this same model.

One of the most common problems we have seen is that the message reply "never comes back", which means you sent your text to a short code but you never receive any type of reply in a reasonable amount of time. Your message has gone into "limbo".

Here is an example graph from a short code service that allows you to submit general information queries via a short code. The graph lines "dipping down" toward the bottom indicates that the success rate of the service is dropping. In this case the last 1 weeks worth of data shows that this service is only successful 58% of the time on average. And it is from a service that just about all of us would recognize.

We are currently advising our customers not to assume that their SMS services are running at 99% or higher. In reality, very few of the ones we have seen are running at this level. Many are running down in the 90% range and a few like the one I have shown here has major problems that need to be fixed.

If you are concerned about the availability of your mobile services, it is important to develop some type of strategy that will give you visibility into what is happening in the real world. I'm sure services like the one above went through extensive QA testing, but once a service is released out into the hands of real users, you might get a different result than what you established during pre-production testing.

Coming Soon? GSM Handsets for Sprint/Nextel Customers

Deutsche Telekom Considering Sprint/Nextel Takeover

Even though the Microsoft/Yahoo courtship and apparent breakup does have implications for the mobile industry, the whole situation just didn’t peak my interest as much as this news item regarding the possible takeover of Sprint/Nextel by Deutsche Telekom.

The first thing to note is that DT is the parent company of T-Mobile in the US. If this potential merger actually happened it would create the largest wireless provider in the US. The new company would be bigger than AT&T or Verizon.

Now that would be a game changer. The Microsoft/Yahoo thing is interesting, but given Microsoft’s past track record doing big purchases, it is hard to see how a Microsoft/Yahoo merger would immediately impact what is happening in the mobile world. It might be a long while, if ever, before we saw something significant come out of their merger.

Now the DT/Sprint combination is different. First off, T-Mobile is based on GSM, Sprint is based on CDMA, and Nextel is IDEN. These are different and incompatible technologies. If this merger were to happen, then you would think there would be a lot of talk about consolidating customers under one technology, but which one? DT’s roots are in Europe which is all based on GSM. It would be a really big project that would take a lot of time if a decision was made to make GSM the foreground technology while CDMA moved into the shadows.

Maybe T-Mobile would ask (“force”) Sprint/Nextel customers to upgrade to a GSM handset when their contracts expired. Then again, there is a lot of cool stuff running on CDMA/EVDO that isn’t common or available on GSM. And then-then again, GSM would let Sprint customers easily roam when in Europe. The possibilities seem pretty endless on what could be done.

Overall such a deal seems like it would make sense for both parties. The deal would strongly improve DT’s position in the US, and would pull Sprint out of the suppressed state that it is in right now.

The other dynamic in play is the current price war going on between the US operators. “All you can eat” fixed price plans are now the standard. This could potentially create a “death spiral” where constant cutting of the fixed “buffet” price leads to a situation where no one makes any money. By taking out Sprint, T-Mobile could benefit from some long term price protections.

The cheap-dollar also becomes a big factor in this type of deal. T-Mobile in the US isn’t flush with cash, so the DT parent company would have to step in. DT has lots of cash, and a favorable currency market, so the purchase of Sprint could turn out to be a real bargain for them. I’m not a financial guru, but some of these factors seem obvious.

And lastly, with WiMax on the horizon, Sprint’s leading position in this technology area is another little enticing carrot for any potential suitor. On the down side, there will probably be a lot of anti-trust issues with a foreign company owning such a big piece of the US telecom infrastructure.