How good should wireless be?

The backlash against the wireless industry in the wake of blackouts earlier this month was right on the money, but for the wrong reasons.

The flap about the number of cell sites that went down when backup power was drained, and about all the calls that didn’t go through because of network congestion, seemed to be based in part on the idea that the wireless industry has some kind of inherent obligation to serve the public with its services. There is, of course, a public safety aspect to wireless service—one perpetuated by the wireless industry itself, in fact.

The last time I checked, however, the wireless industry wasn’t a government agency or an emergency communications system. On the contrary, wireless is arguably the least regulated of all communications sectors and not subject to the same kind of lifeline service obligations as wireline. So why the expectation that, during the blackouts that plunged much of the country into darkness recently, wireless networks failed the citizenry?

Regardless, there are many serious issues that should be considered in the aftermath of how wireless performed during the blackouts. First, there is the question of whether wireless networks have adequate backup power. I talked this week to John Celentano, president of telecom research and consulting firm Skyline Marketing Group (www.skylinemarketing.com), who believes that as they’ve trimmed opex and otherwise taken cost out of their network operations, wireless carriers have not paid enough attention to the power portion of their network infrastructure—particularly those carriers operating in highly congested metro areas.

“The lesson learned is that they’re going to have to take another look at how they engineer their sites,” Celentano said. “They’re never going to engineer for completely foolproof operation, but there are ways to engineer it to achieve 80% throughput even under the worse possible scenario.” Still, he agreed that the issue should be driven by carriers’ desire to satisfy and retain their customers, not just to sway public opinion. Carriers should want to bolster cell sites with additional backup power resources in the event of a major catastrophe because they want to earn and keep the loyalty of their customers. 

Second, there is the revenue issue. Had they been better prepared to handle the capacity and back up their power systems, the wireless carriers that service the area affected by the blackouts likely could have reaped a financial windfall from the huge spike in traffic. Perhaps this most recent outage will prompt them to take steps to prepare themselves to benefit from the next. As Celentano put it, “How many times do we have to have a catastrophe before we take a new look at how we engineer these networks?”

Which brings us to the issue of exactly what level of preparedness wireless carriers should strive for in their networks. Given events such as the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the recent blackouts, should wireless carriers be equipped to handle the worst-case scenario? Should regulations be adapted to mandate that they must? These are questions both government and the wireless industry should be seriously considering--albeit for different reasons.

E-mail me at jmeyers@primediabusiness.com.