Voice SMS (not MMS) - the application people really want

In the second session at Connect 2006, Ewald Andert from Kirusa described Voice SMS and some of it's uptake in Asia.  I first saw one of the early Voice SMS services (not from Kirusa) in Singapore in December 2005, but now there are multiple vendors and the application is being rolled out in numerous Asian countries.

Isn't Voice SMS just voicemail, repackaged?  No!  With voice mail you place a call and, if it fails to get through, you get dumped to voice mail.  Voice SMS intentional messaging. 

Like SMS, you decide you want to send a message — perhaps one message to multiple people.  Unlike SMS, the user interface is easy — you speak.  You don't have to peck at keys.  And on the receiving side, you decide when to listen — perhaps you're in a place where you can listen to a message but can't carry on a conversation right now.

Sending voice instead of text solves problems in parts of Asia where local languages aren't handled by the SMS interface.  It's even more important for people who can't read and write.  Finally, there's a lot more information and emotional content in a voice message than any text message.

One of Kirusa's first Voice SMS was GrameenPhone in Bangladesh.  This short advertisement by GrameenPhone shows the emotional value of Voice SMS.

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RSS Readers click here to view the video.

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Early experience in several Asian countries suggest very rapid adoption — 30% to 50% penetration in less than 12 months for a service which is priced below voice phone calls, but 50% above SMS messages.

This is a person-to-person application that feels like it's going to be really big!

Comments

[fairuz]

Hi,

Can you teach me how to calculate system capacity for VoiceSMS application using BHCA?

[brough]

Fairuz, I'm sorry for the long delay in responding. I've been out of the country and then on vacation. Here's a summary of how to approach the calculation.

Beside BHCAs you also need to know the average call holding time, i.e. the time someone is connected to the Voice SMS system's IVR to either record audio or listen to audio. From call attempts and average holding time, you can calculate the total amount of traffic minutes on the IVR system during the busy hour. That's referred to as the "Erlangs" of traffic. For example, if you expect a total of 450 minutes of traffic during the busy hour, that would be 7.5 Erlangs of traffic (450/ 60 minutes in an hour).

Next you need to pick an acceptable loss criteria, for example 0.5%, i.e. 199 out of 200 call attempts will get through correctly.

Then you need to use Erlang B traffic tables. Erlang B refers to the case where calls are not queued, i.e. if the system is busy when someone calls, that call attempt is lost. Erlang B is more appropriate to Voice SMS than Erlang C (which applies to call centers and other places where callers wait in a queue).

There are software packages (typically for sale) which do Erlang B calculations and there are also Erlang B tables, for example:
http://www.umtsworld.com/resources/erlang.htm
Given the Erlangs of traffic and the acceptable loss, you look in the table to find the number of trunks you need on your IVR system.

I hope helps a bit. More than that and you'll need to read some traffic engineering texts. :-)

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[mobi yard]

wow, that was great post.. thanx for sharing the same...Mobile Social networking

[Md. Ariful Islam]

Hi,
would anyone please let me know how to calculate the capacity for SMSC and MMSC?

Thanks in advance...