New Year's Day gets lost by mobile operators

THE NUMBER of text messages sent in a single day hit a new peak in the UK according to the latest figures from the MDA (Mobile Data Association).

Some 110 million messages were sent between midnight on December 31st and midnight on January 1st. Unfortunately, the number of texts that didn't actually arrive could be as many as 27.5 million.

A Swiss company, Sicap, decided to experiment and send four messages over the UK's main mobile networks from exactly the same location in Central London. The best result was achieved by Vodafone which managed to deliver the message within 16 minutes.

After that the next fastest was 1 hour and 7 minutes, followed by 4 hours and 43 minutes.

The fourth message didn't arrive at all, even though the sender had actually paid for the privilege. As Sicap claims, most mobile network operators simply aren't geared up for such peaks. The relevant hardware/software is technically known as an SMSC (Short Message Service Centre) which is effectively a large store and forward box.

If it gets overloaded, messages simply just disappear. Naturally, Sicap refused to reveal just which UK operator failed to deliver the message at all.

The answer will probably be forthcoming when Sicap announces a deal over the next three months with a UK operator taking advantage of the company's SMS-Direct service. Basically this service is designed to handle overspills.

The alternative would be to pay the huge licence fees for more SMSCs. Personally the INQ recommends the UK operators hop on a plane to India with a chequebook. You can get a bargain basement SMSC over there. To see which other days had peak SMS traffic - for example, which was bigger? St Patrick's Day? England's Rugby Cup victory? or St Valentine's Day? go to www.text.it. µ