JOIN OUR MAILING LIST
News


2009-07-27
SMS unreliability hits businesses


BY PAUL VECCHIATTO , ITWEB CAPE TOWN CORRESPONDENT

[ Johannesburg, 22 July 2009 Cellular operators are refusing to take full responsibility for the reliability of using the short message service (SMS) in business critical applications, such as remote monitoring of equipment, users say.

“Cellular operators are so nervous about the quality of service over their networks that none will offer either a service level agreement (SLA) or even a service level expectation,” says Jako Winter, CTO of communications engineering company Metacom. Metacom supplies wireless routers and monitoring equipment to a number of large organisations, such as Eskom and Pep Group.

Winter also says the network operators do not have stringent enough security checks on SIM cards stolen from remote equipment units, such as routers, and these are then used to make fraudulent calls, leaving his company to pick up the tab.

“While the cards are PIN-protected, the criminals can easily phone the networks and ask for the PUK number (the card security code) for the PIN and unblock it. This means that we end up with a bill for calls made and the networks will not cover this,” Winter says.

Claims confirmed

Two other companies, offering similar services that rely on SMS to relay information that monitors equipment, have confirmed his claims. However, they are not prepared to go on the record for fear of upsetting their relationships with network operators.

“There is a problem over the reliability of the SMS issue and the networks will not give any form of SLA, which makes it difficult for us to convince our customers of the reliability of this form of communication,” one of those companies' chief marketing officers says.

The issue of network reliability has become increasingly contentious and was highlighted in May, when the voting for the popular “Idols” talent contest was derailed due to SMSes not getting through to the organisers in time. Telecommunications regulator ICASA subsequently met with the network operators about the reliability issue, but no clear understanding has been reached between the parties so far.

For critical applications, such as the monitoring of networks, SLAs related to the reliability of the networks and the security of the SIM cards, in that they cannot be used fraudulently, is of major importance as business cases rest on these, say Metacom and the other companies.

Network answers

Vodacom responded by confirming that it does not offer SLAs on SMS transmission; however, it endeavours to ensure that its network is available at all times and it uses world-class equipment and monitoring services to ensure availability.

“There are instances that are outside of the control of Vodacom, such as where a cellphone is outside of a coverage area or switched off, the SMS will only be delivered once the cellphone is available on the network again,” Vodacom's reply says.

Vodacom currently offers a data SIM solution where data SIM cards are linked to a contract package that cannot be used to make or receive voice calls. An alternative would be to use prepaid SIM cards, loaded with SMS bundles – as there is no airtime credit on the prepaid SIM card. Criminals will not be able to make any voice calls on these SIM cards, the network operator says.

MTN says SLAs are put in place based on the requirements of individual clients. In conjunction with a client, the relevant business solution consultant works with the technology team to provide the most suitable solution.

However, Metacom and the other companies say they cannot get an SLA that meets the 99% uptime requirement that they need.

On the SIM card security issue, MTN says it is technically possible to use them for fraudulent purposes.

“However, in order to obtain the PUK details, the call centre operator has to validate this via a five-point security check with the caller to confirm that they are indeed speaking to the rightful owner of the SIM card. If, however, the criminal/thief is in possession of these details, it would be easy for him to validate himself as being an employee of the client/lawful owner,” MTN says.

Reliable transmission

Metacom provides mission-critical monitoring services such as detection of power line faults and financial information in real-time.

This is done by using SMS over either the Vodacom or MTN networks to control centres located either at Metacom or on the client premises. The key to this is that the networks have to be reliable in transmitting that data timely.

Currently, Metacom's data requirements are not huge. Winter estimates that his services transmit about 180Gb of data per month over the cellular networks in small pulses and, because of this, it does not overload the networks.

However, Metacom is exploring other applications that it wants to release in the near future and this includes video being transmitted over the networks.

“Once video is involved as a mission-critical application, then the data requirements rise exponentially and the network uptime becomes absolutely critical,” Winter says.

Bootstrap networks

“The cellular network operators have, for some time, been trying to lessen their dependence on voice for revenue and increase revenue from data services. Key to doing this would be to offer proper SLAs, but this won't happen for some time,” says Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx.

“SLAs have always been important, but the network operators argue that if they had to start offering them, then the cost of the service would rise exponentially,” he says.

Goldstuck says one of the major reasons for the network operators refusing to offer SLAs is that their networks are badly managed. “When it takes them up to eight hours to pinpoint that there is a fault, never mind just admitting there is one, then this gives you an indication of how badly managed their networks are.”

Goldstuck says this situation is partly due to the cost of running a well-managed network and the fact that the networks had to literally pull themselves up by their bootstraps. “They had to build their networks from the ground up when everything started.”

Goldstuck points to the Idols voting fiasco as proof that the network operators will only react when a large number of people are affected by poor quality of service.

“The meeting ICASA had with them afterwards has not resolved the issue, but it was a good start as the networks now have to start putting in some monitoring equipment,” Goldstuck concludes.

Related stories: 
Capacity caused Idols catastrophe 
Regulator searches for cellular truth 
Telcos deny Idols responsibility

Back Back to top
 
 
Close