Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Keynote Warns That Millions of Wireless Text Messages Are Lost

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 17:01:25 -0500

Keynote Warns That Millions of Wireless Text Messages Are Lost; First Ever
Study Shows Critical Interoperability Problems; Lost Revenue Potential is
Staggering

Story Filed: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 3:47 PM EST

SAN MATEO, Calif., Jan 15, 2003 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Keynote Systems (Nasdaq:KEYN) today
released the results of
a study it conducted that for the first time ever quantifies the percent of Short Message
Service (SMS) wireless text messages
lost between the major wireless carriers in the United States, and the results are
dismaying. 7.5% of the messages sent were not
received within 120 seconds and were counted as "lost" during the two-week study (December
1 through December 14,
2002). 92.5% of all messages sent arrived at their destination. An availability of only
92.5% may represent a significant loss of
information and business when the number of lost messages is calculated.

The study indicates the urgent need for monitoring and diagnostic services that help
expose performance problems between the
major wireless carriers and ultimately improve performance. Keynote's data, for the first
time, provides carriers with visibility
into the performance of SMS once a message leaves their network.

Wireless customers with text messaging service are charged for both outgoing and incoming
messages and typically will quickly
know whether or not the text messages they send are received by the intended recipient.
Until now wireless carriers had no
way of knowing whether or not a text message was received once a message left their
network. Now they do. Giving needed
visibility into the performance of their text messaging systems helps carriers optimize
potentially lost revenue due to customer
dissatisfaction with the quality and consistency of their wireless text messaging service.

Keynote also announced new versions of its Wireless Perspective(R) Carrier Edition Service
(see separate press release issued
today).

According to Tom Wheeler, president and CEO of Cellular Telecommunications and Internet
Association (CTIA),
"30,000,000 text messages were sent in the month of June last year. By June 2002, we saw
one billion text messages
exchanged. That's billion with a B. These statistics capture my imagination because text
messaging is the training wheels for the
wireless Internet." He went on to say that this amazing growth bodes well for the future
of wireless data applications.

"Among the challenges for the adoption of SMS messaging by consumers has been the lack of
cross-carrier SMS
interoperability," said Chuck Mount, general manager of Keynote's Wireless Perspective
Service. "If we calculate that out of
30 million messages as many as 10% are lost, the projection for next year could represent
a staggering revenue loss for the
carriers. In the past year the performance and availability of SMS across a single
carrier's network as measured by Keynote
has shown improvement, while the performance of messages sent between carriers is still
erratic at times and reflects the infancy
of this inter-carrier capability that carriers announced over this past year. That speaks
to the real need for an inter-carrier
benchmark to avoid the potential for significant loss of revenue for the carriers and the
continuing need to improve that
performance."

The addition of inter-carrier measurements gives carriers a benchmark for continued
improvement of the transfer of messages
between all carriers to provide consistent and reliable performance for customers using
SMS. Carriers can take advantage of
the expanded capabilities delivered as part of the Keynote SMS Benchmark measured by the
Keynote Wireless Perspective
Service. Keynote which is the only benchmarking service to provide availability and
performance measurement for WAP and
SMS multi-step transactions as well as ring tone and picture graphic downloads and support
for inter-carrier messaging.
Wireless Perspective is part of Keynote's Total Performance Strategy for benchmarking,
testing and managing the end-to end
performance of e-business applications and systems.

Keynote publishes the aggregate results of its SMS Benchmark on its Web site and in
America's Network magazine. The
detailed results are available through the Keynote SMS Benchmark measured by the Wireless
Perspective Service. The details
about the methodology behind the Index can be found on Keynote's Web site at
http://www.keynote.com/solutions/performance--indices/wireless--index/
wireless--sms--background.html. (Due to
the length of this URL, it may be necessary to copy and paste this hyperlink into your
Internet browser's URL address field.)

Keynote SMS Benchmark Results

Aggregate results of the Keynote SMS Benchmark for December 1 through December 14, 2002:
Average Response Time (in
seconds)

(Receiving)
AT&T    Cingular   Nextel   T-Mobile   Verizon     Average
AT&T       13.98     10.57     15.59     10.7       11.8        12.66
Cingular   11.45      9.11     17.85    11.54      14.03        12.58
Nextel     15.75     23.98      8.71    15.54       17.2        15.33
T-Mobile   10.86     10.19     15.81    11.63      11.79         12.1
Verizon     8.86      9.32     16.47     8.74      20.67        13.63
Average    12.26     12.65     14.15     11.6      15.81

Average Availability

(Receiving)
AT&T    Cingular  Nextel   T-Mobile  Verizon     Average
AT&T        97.80%    93.80%   93.50%    93.70%      97%      95.50%
Cingular    96.40%    97.30%   92.90%    93.40%   94.50%         95%
Nextel      96.90%    96.20%   89.10%    94.10%   97.10%      94.30%
T-Mobile    86.70%    84.90%   81.60%       87%   88.60%         86%
Verizon     96.40%    95.70%   83.20%    93.90%   96.60%         93%
Average     94.80%    93.80%   87.40%       92%      95%

http://library.northernlight.com/FE20030115030000053.html?cb=0&dx=1006&sc=0#doc

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