How many simultaneous connections can each COW handle? What kind of backhaul connections do they have? -Mike On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 10:49 AM, Jack Carrozzo <jack@crepinc.com> wrote:
I can't comment on revenue-generation, though access as a whole was quite high.
We hardly had any voice IAs (Ineffective Attempts, or 'Busy' messages). Since data can be queued, the only thing that would cause data IAs are bad RF conditions - we had a TON of 'cell on wheels' in the area for the event so we had enough carrier space to cover it.
In-network data response times were hardly affected, with switch loads well below 50%. In-network SMS were still getting to their destinations in under 5 seconds for the most part.... I don't have any numbers on MMS or mobile IP data at the moment, though I would have heard if something horrible had happened.
I'm told that the out-of-network SMS queue was piling pretty high at one point, to delivery times up to an hour, though they all still got there. We can't control other network's switches obviously.
This isn't trying to sound like an advertisement - *I'm* not affected either way if people sign up with us as I'm not in sales, however from my point of view it looks like we had the most solid network... Our guys were planning and setting things up since June.
Cheers,
-Jack Carrozzo
On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 1:29 PM, Peter Beckman <beckman@angryox.com> wrote:
On Tue, 20 Jan 2009, Jack Carrozzo wrote:
Cell networks held up reasonably well for voice, though SMS and MMS delivery times approached an hour during the event. Switch load in almost the entire US was higher than midnight on New Years (which is generally the highest load of the year).
Our network has been preparing since June, and I assume likewise for others.
Unfortunately for me Sprint did not seem to prepare or have enough capacity for Voice, SMS or Data access. No live Twitter blogging!
While I was able to get a few (maybe 5 between 10am and 2pm) text messages out while standing near the Washington Monument, calls and data were an impossibility, and SMS only seemed to have capacity available during lulls in the Inaugural activity.
It was disappointing as a customer -- I'm sure that, had the capacity been there, the revenue from that single event would have made a significant impact on any of the carrier's revenue, at least for the month.
-Jack Carrozzo (Engineer at $large cell company whose policy doesn't allow me to specify)
(Google spills the beans!) I'm curious if you can find out -- did the record traffic positively affect revenue for that period compared to last year at the same time, or even last week on the same day?
And from a more technical standpoint, did your $large cell company put up temporary towers? I'm curious as to how your company added capacity to handle the event, as well as how many "Network Busy" messages customers got, if any. I know I got more of those messages than I did successful communications.
Beckman
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Peter Beckman Internet Guy beckman@angryox.com http://www.angryox.com/
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