Project Type: Network Performance

Customer: O2

Platform: iPhone

Product Overview:

iTestNet is an iPhone performance measurement and web based reporting service. It measures both the performance and behaviour of the iPhone on the O2 and competitors’ networks.

Penrillian began designing and developing the solution towards the end of 2009. Phase 1 was launched in April 2010 and received favourable reviews from O2 users. Following this success, O2 requested a number of enhancements, which have been delivered throughout 2010 and into 2011.

The solution, which was originally developed as an internal tool for O2’s UK network performance team, has the potential to grow – both as an internal tool but also as a consumer application.

A consumer version of the application is currently being tested with the expectation it will go public later this year. Crowdsourcing is being used to solicit feedback from active friends and families of O2’s employees.

‘The existing app evolved using behaviour-driven development and agile practices. The team delivered rapidly changing requirements to a tight deadline by making easy, frequent and quick communication a priority. The whole process was innovative, flexible and responsive.’

Chris Allison, Senior Developer, Penrillian

The Challenge:

Initially, in the UK, the iPhone was available exclusively on the O2 network. After two years this exclusivity ended, and from late 2009 the iPhone was being offered by Orange and Vodafone.

O2 knew that between operators there would be little to differentiate the customers’ iPhone ‘experience’ in terms of price and features. However, data transfer performance would be likely to vary across the networks, and O2 saw an advantage in demonstrating that usability on O2 exceeded the performance experienced on rivals’ networks.

The monitoring requirements were identified by Dave Owens, O2’s Network Performance Manager, Radio Engineering Delivery. A third party monitoring product was already available and in use in O2, but at a high cost. O2 recognised the benefits of developing its own zero-licensed and low maintenance solution.

Objectives:

• To develop own monitoring application which would reduce the heavy licensing costs being incurred by O2.
• To develop highly usable software for the iPhone
• To develop a web based service for storing and reporting data

What we did:

Due to the ‘locked-down’ nature of the iPhone OS, it was initially unknown if all the product requirements could be met. Penrillian’s Agile approach enabled all ‘unknowns’ to be investigated and within a week it was clear what would and wouldn’t be possible on the iPhone.

During development, a tested release of the software was delivered each week to be reviewed by David Owens. Tasks were prioritised for the following week’s iteration, based on what would deliver most business value. Flexibility was key for O2 as this enabled them to introduce new features during the development process.

Results:

The iTestNet service performs http/ftp ‘put and get’ analytics, it carries out ping (latency) tests, and allows web page download performance to be measured, which contributes to real customer experience evaluation.

Users are also able to submit data and call problem reports, which include valuable location information as an aid to subsequent network analysis.

The Website receives data from the tests, collates it in tabular form, and plots it on maps and graphs. The data can be exported in Excel, XML, CSV and JSON formats for external reporting/ management reports.

The website has been designed with extensibility in mind. It provides a RESTful interface to allow other O2 backend systems to extract or contribute test data on a step-by-step basis. For security, SSL authentication is enforced by the website before any access to the data is allowed.

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