Is .99999 an Outdated Goal for Operators?
I’ve spent a lot of time supporting; watching and monitoring operators roll out a variety of programs and services lately – new app stores, new networks, APIs, new and improved developer programs. It got me thinking: Is 99.999% (.99999) or ‘five-nines’ an outdated goal for operators? I think it might be.
Five-nines is the standard for measuring the network availability, which is pretty close to always on, never down. It equates to about 5 minutes and 15 seconds of downtime per year. According to Tomi Ahonenand some banter we had on twitter this week: “mobile phone network serving millions cannot go down for half a minute per year, unacceptable.. 
hence five nines needed”.
The fact is a network down or a dropped call is already a reality. Rogers was down for an afternoon in Vancouver last week; and if you travel to London, New York, San Francisco you expect to have a few calls that won’t connect; and SMSs that go nowhere. Interestingly, consumers have already accepted...