SAN MATEO, Calif.-About 7 percent of all text messages in the United States do not reach their destination, according to a new study from Keynote Systems, a finding that comes as many operators have installed text messaging interoperability and are looking to boost usage numbers.
More than 1 billion text messages were sent across the country in June, according to the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association. Keynote found that 92.5 percent of those messages were sent successfully.
“If we calculate that out of 30 million messages as many as 10 percent are lost, the projection for next year could represent a staggering revenue loss for the carriers,” said Chuck Mount, general manager of Keynote’s Wireless Perspective Service. “In the past year the performance and availability of SMS across a single carrier’s network as measured by Keynote has shown improvement, while the performance of messages sent between carriers is still erratic at times and reflects the infancy of this inter-carrier capability that carriers announced over this past year.”
In conjunction with its findings, Keynote is releasing a new version of its Wireless Perspective Carrier Edition Service, which helps carriers track text messaging and wireless data usage and performance.
According to the company’s findings, AT&T Wireless Services Inc. had the highest success rate for text messaging, with a 95.5 percent availability, while T-Mobile USA Inc. scored the lowest, with 86 percent availability.
