Network Envy

It's a common scene at every wireless conference. The session ends and participants stampede to the foyer, pull out their handsets and call their offices. Invariably, some calls don't go through. If it's my call that falters, I immediately take a surreptitious look at the guy talking next to me to see which carrier he's using. That pang I feel is network envy.

It's particularly poignant when you've just left a conference session on some whiz-bang futuristic applications that are supposed to change our world (and bring billions into the wireless coffers — although not until 2005).

This isn't 2005, it's 2001. And all I want is for my call to go through.

I am comforted by the fact that my carrier also wants my call to go through. In fact, my carrier wants more than a good network; it wants to have a better network than the other guys. How do I know that? Because my carrier is out there spying on all of the other networks to make sure that the competitors aren't providing better service.

They call it competitive benchmarking, but essentially it's spying. You can do it yourself. All you need is drive-testing equipment and phones belonging to the competition. You also can hire it out to a company such as Agilent Technologies.

Agilent (www.agilent.com) has been in the “network intelligence” business since 1999 when it bought Safco, which already was involved in competitive benchmarking. Agilent has conducted competitive benchmarking in more than 158 markets, driving more than 171,972 miles and placing more than 1.18 million calls. It goes into a city and checks out up to eight different carriers, noting how many calls make it through, how many never connect and how many drop.

Voice quality is measured on a scale of 1 to 5, but no wireless carrier ever achieves a 5. John Catlin, Agilent wireless information services manager, said based on vocoder limitations, a 4 is about as good as it gets. The ratings actually are calculated by a subjective listener group that compares the recordings with an uncontaminated wave file that does rate a 5.

It turns out carriers aren't the only ones that are interested in how the competition is doing. Vendors use benchmarking services to check out how their equipment measures up; tower companies are eager to know the coverage quality at various sites.

I figure the Agilent folks have found out some interesting things: which carrier drops the most calls, how CDMA compares with TDMA in terms of voice quality and whose switches work the best. I wanted that same information, but they weren't about to sell out their customers — admirable, if slightly disappointing. (The next time I run into the Agilent people, I plan to check out the handsets they're using and draw my own conclusions.)

Agilent, however, is willing to share the benchmark averages for some U.S. metro areas. If you are a Seattle carrier, you already know your own drive-testing statistics. With the chart on this page, you'll know if you're above or below average. In coming issues, we'll be publishing the statistics for other metro areas. It's pretty basic stuff, but these aren't the times to ignore the basics.

At the Wireless Agenda conference, Andrew Harris, Sierra Wireless (www.sierrawireless.com) senior vice president, said that we are all addicted to the next big thing, and we are training our customers to wait for it. This is a mistake. The customer wants to take modest steps, and “scratch that itch right now,” he said.

I know what he means. I just want my call to get through.

Comments? E-mail mmartinek@intertec.com.

Seattle Benchmarks

Drive testing of seven networks in the Seattle area included 1,752 miles driven between Nov. 6 and Nov. 17, 2000. Calls totaled 14,338. The figures represent an average of all Seattle networks.

Next Market: Washington, D.C./Baltimore

*Access failure is determined by dividing the total call attempts by the total no-service and blocked calls.

**Voice-quality measurements are scored on a 1-to-5 scale with 5 being the best. The figure is calculated by taking an average of the electronic mean opinion score for both the forward and reverse links of each operator's network.

Statistics provided by Agilent Technologies (www.agilent.com/find/benchmarking)