* Competition drives cellular improvements
The mobile WAN carriers are scurrying to bring new advantages to the table. They are feeling the heat of competition, not only from one another, but from other wireless networks, such as Wi-Fi hot spots and the forthcoming mobile flavor of WiMAX.
The last newsletter discussed recent moves by Verizon Wireless and AT&T Wireless to expand the footprints of their respective EV-DO and UMTS high-speed networks. For its part, Sprint PCS said in June it would launch EV-DO data services in select markets by year-end and in a majority of top metropolitan markets in 2005.
Meantime, in August, Sprint announced the industry’s first-ever service-level agreements (SLA) for business wireless voice services.
In theory, this is a wonderful idea. Sprint has pledged to offer service credits to business subscribers when there are more than 2% dropped calls per month, more than 2% blocked calls per month or if network voice availability should fall below 99.9% in a month. Given the comparatively low standards we’ve come to settle for in the cellular world, this move to offer business SLAs for voice seems to be a step in the right direction.
On the other hand, this first industry stab at wireless SLAs is a little loosey-goosey. The metrics mentioned apply to the national average wireless performance of the Sprint Nationwide PCS Network – not to the individual user’s experience – which makes them far less meaningful.
And if the metrics aren’t met – by Sprint’s own measurements – the customer “may” be eligible for a service credit of 10% (in Sprint verbiage) of the monthly recurring service charge for the wireless service for each violation, or potentially 30% in credits in all.
There are a lot of “ifs” and proving you deserve a credit might end up being more difficult than it is worth. It is questionable how many service credits will actually get paid and whether Sprint is really doing anything new to improve voice quality.
On the other hand, it’s a start. Now that the door has been opened, you might wish to try to negotiate more meaningful SLAs with Sprint, or, now that Sprint has begun raising the bar, take your expectations of an SLA to another carrier.
