Impact Of Cellular Network Downtime

Impact of Poor Quality in Cellular Networks (Case Study of Cellular Operators in Pakistan)

By Abid Riaz

Purpose of the Paper To Identify & Measure tangible & intangible loss in cellular networks due to nonconformance.

Sequence of Presentation • Business Potential in Telecom Industry. • Overview of SPs in Pakistan. • Industry trends & challenges. • Quality Service – QoS & QoE. • Downtime – (BSS only) , causes. • Measuring the Cost of Network Downtime. • Improving Network Availability. • Conclusions.

Pakistan Among The Fastest Growing In Telecom Pakistani cell phone users reaches 91,008,042 - one of the fastest growing country across the globe in the telecommunications sector. (UN) Pakistan generated 763 million text messages during 2008/09 and stood fourth for SMS traffic in Asia Pacific (PTA)

Overview Of Mobile Companies in Pakistan The market share of mobile phone companies of Pakistan, as of September 2008.

Overview Of Mobile Companies in Pakistan (Contd.)

Industry trends and challenges • The exponential hike in SP’s growth was associated to new technology (GSM), to overtake the existing land line technology & in addition customers were attracted because the limited mobility concept was about to be history. • A few years back, customer complaints were in motion, and started switching different operators for the sake of better quality of service. Mobile service providers were observing loss in their revenue, loosing the market shares and a realizing a downfall.

QoS & QoE • QoS (Quality of Service) is the ability of the network to provide a service with an assured service level. • QoE( quality of end-user experience) is how a user perceives the usability of a service when in use – how satisfied with a service in terms of, for example, usability, accessibility, retainability and integrity of the service.

Quality in a product or service is not what the supplier puts in. It is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for. ~Peter F Drucker

Service Quality Service quality cannot be measured unless SPs know what Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Key Quality Indicators (KQIs) are most relevant to cellular networks and services and how they can be used to

Network Downtime Downtime or outage duration refers to a period of time that a system fails to provide or perform its primary function. This is usually a result of the system failing to functionbecause of an unplanned event, or because of routine maintenance. * Limited to Base Station Sub-Systems (BSS) only

Network Downtime (Contd.) Unplanned downtime is downtime that occurs as a result of a failure (for example, a hardware failure or a system failure).

Planned downtime is downtime that occurs when an administrator shuts down the system at a scheduled time. Because planned downtime is scheduled, administrators can plan for it to occur at a time that least

Network Downtime (Contd.)

Causes of Downtime (Outages) Unplanned Downtime • • • • • •

Environmental issues  Hardware issues  Media issues    Software issues    Service issues    Staffing issues   

Planned Downtime

Upgrades for hardware components & software (usually 10-20% of network % Network Availability = (Up Time / (Up Time + Down downtime). Time)) ×100

 

Measuring the Cost of Network Downtime • • • •

Financial Impact of Downtime Customer Churn Damaged Reputation Losing Margin

Assessing the Financial Impact of Downtime The analysis of outage report of SPs in the 1st quarter of year 2009 revealed the average of different type of outages as under; 83% of environmental issues are due to power supply

U n p la n n e d O u t a g e D is t rib u t io n 2%

10%

3%

17%

M e d ia Is s u e s E n v ir o n m e n ta l Ha rd w are A c c e s s /W e a th e r

68%

A u to r e s to r e

Assessing the Financial Impact of Downtime (Contd.)

The number of affected sites & the average downtime of outages in 1st quarter of year 09 (week 1 – 14) are A f f ec ted Sites 600

A v g. Dow ntime (Hr) 4:48:00 4:19:12

500

3:50:24

400

3:21:36

300

2:24:00

2:52:48 1:55:12

200

1:26:24 0:57:36

100

0:28:48

0

0:00:00

w k- w k- w k- w k- w k- w k- w k- w k- w k- w k- w k- w k- w k- w k01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14

Wk- Wk- W k- Wk- Wk- Wk- Wk- W k- Wk- Wk- W k- Wk- Wk- W k01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14

Assessing the Financial Impact of Downtime (Contd.) The trend of average traffic observed during this quarter of the year 2009 is NetworkErlangs per W eek

x 1,000,000

24 23.5 23 22.5 22 21.5 wk1

wk2

wk3

wk4

wk5

wk6

wk7

wk8

wk9

wk10

wk11

wk12

wk13

wk14

Assessing the Financial Impact of Downtime (Contd.) Lost Profits = Affected Sites x Duration x Erlangs loss (k) Let N = number of Affected sites per week D = Avg. Duration of downtime per week (Downtime per week/No of outages) Er = Erlangs loss per week (Network erlangs/ No sites in network) x k, Where coefficient k converts erlangs into revenue (k = 72) Lost Profit = ∑ i → j (Ni x Di x Eri x k), Where i = week (wk 1, wk 2 ... wk 14, j= 14)

Measuring the Cost of Network Downtime (Contd.) Customer Churn Churn refers to the cost of lost business due to customer dissatisfaction over quality of service. Damaged Reputation Downtime/Service Degradation can also cause a loss in company reputation and customer loyalty.

Measuring the Cost of Network Downtime (Contd.) Losing Margin SPs lose significant revenue & margin due to inferior quality; the attitude of CI can help SPs capture quality-sensitive customers.

Measuring the Cost of Network Downtime (Contd.) 71% of respondents (Survey) rated availability & performance as important or very important for selecting SP.

Improving Network Availability Reactive Approach The reactive approach promises fast response times to critical problems. All necessary resources will be committed to resolving the situation. Software patches will be implemented to resolve problems if necessary.

Improving Network Availability ( Contd.) Proactive Approach & CI The proactive approach focuses on anticipating and addressing potential problems early. A proactive notification of diagnostic indicators can reduce the length of, or even eliminate some network outages.

Improving Network Availability ( Contd.) Proactive Approach & CI By inspecting the health check of network nodes on periodic basis the proactive approach defines new dimension and can be quite successful to improve the network availability. Without the attitude of CI (continuous improvement) the proactive

For the last few years, SPs have focused their energies on heavy roll out, with less emphasis on quality and reliability.  The next phase promises SPs survival only if they meet new level network availability & performance. CI in this dimension ensures SPs financial benefits too great to ignore & perhaps the only way to survival in this fast growing market having many potential competitors. 

“Ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"