Subject: [NEXTEL-1] The Problems With Data

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Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2003 12:24:45 -0500

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The Problems With Data

By Rhonda Wickham
January 1, 2003

Wireless Week
© 2002, Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Last weekend, I finally joined the broadband ranks. Having conducted Internet business via a telephone line, I was eager to upgrade to fast connects and breathtaking download speeds. In the sales pitch, the rep bragged that the speeds were 100 times faster than my telephone connection. "Oh c'mon," I challenged. "How's that possible?" "OK, maybe only 50 times faster," she recanted.

Speed, or at least perceived speed, is a key benchmark data customers use to evaluate their sessions. Unfortunately, the problem with data is it doesn't stop at speed. Speed means nothing if the applications and services don't work efficiently.

This holds true also for wireless data, where a dropped transmission is no longer a simple matter of a lost minute of billable airtime revenue. Being a pipeline for what could represent billions of dollars in potential transactions, wireless operators know they have greater responsibility for the quality of overall service.

However, their previous go-to "purveyor and assessor," the OSS system, needs help. Wireless OSS systems originally were designed for circuit-switched voice networks. Service performance used to be about call completions. In the more complex IP-network world, operators know they have to move beyond dropped calls to monitoring network operations based on applications, devices and service. They need to be able to "see" all the way down through the switches, routers, ATMs and PDSNs into the WAP, BREW and other data transports to the customer experience, all the while assessing the performance of each point.

That brings us to the second problem with data. There are mountain ranges of it. Operators have to be able to analyze thousands of points of network data to understand how individuals or groups are using their services, devices and applications, and which are providing the best return. Operators must be able not only to determine that a service is working and how it is performing for each customer but also how many network resources it is using. Only then will they be able to optimize network performance and control their expenditures.

Years ago, operators teamed with vendors to develop hardware and software systems to measure unique components of what was then a wireless version of the old telco network. It started as a Band-Aid here and there until it evolved to a holistic, streamlined network approach. Today, operators are going back to, in many cases, a new group of vendors to develop software that will measure network health, connectivity at various points and http and STP throughputs.

Many vendors from different camps– switch, IP, software–are rising to meet the challenge of providing this type of insight in targeted areas. What ultimately needs to evolve, though, is a more holistic approach that can view both the radio and data networks and all of their links and test and measure the health of the network and the customer experience. But this will take time.

Meanwhile, operators need to exercise caution in what they promise and promote. Waving speed flags and multiple capability banners add up to a fat zero if the operator can't see and control what the customer experiences.

Author Information

Veteran wireless industry journalist Rhonda Wickham is with the consulting company Wickham Ink and be reached at [email-masked] or by phone at 913-209-8080.

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