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Today’s CIO needs three things to be successful with unified communications and the new generation of converged networks and applications: network and systems management, to ensure that the network and applications are available, QoS, to ensure appropriate applications are prioritized and finally, QoE, to ensure users get the quality of experience needed for effective communication.
Converged networks allow more efficient and effective communications. The PSTN gave us any-to-any connectivity for voice conversations, the Internet gave us any-to-any connectivity for data exchange, convergence gives us any-to-any for communication. Users and applications can interact with each other in ways to dramatically improve productivity. However, if the VoIP conversations are too poor to have an effective conversation, or the video quality dips or drags just as a user is making a key point, communication efficiency drops below that of legacy network and systems.
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"Network managers are quickly learning that it is critical to employ tools that identify and isolate quality problems and speed VoIP deployment." |
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It’s All About the End User
User-centric service quality cannot be objectively assessed without using complementary voice, audio and video IP technology measurement methods. In a typical VoIP network, the “IP-bearer” measurement determines if the packet is affected by quality altering variables, such as jitter. This helps to determine if end-user quality is degraded.
Objective testing (QoE) methods better account for the customer experience by combining measurements in addition to packet loss, jitter, delay, speech level, noise level, echo and therefore it comprehensively represents the customer experience.
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The Must-Know for VoIP in Enterprise
Because the future of IP technology is still unclear, companies must adopt best practices to support IP migration and enhanced service quality. By combining IP and voice quality measures, QoE technology identifies all of the critical issues that affect voice quality, such as noise, echo and distortion as well as IP QoS, bridging the gap between legacy solutions and IP networks. Network managers are quickly learning that it is critical to employ tools that identify and isolate quality problems and speed VoIP deployment. An all-in-one QoE management platform that includes both voice and video capabilities supports a single QoE investment for maximized IP technology ROI.
In addition to improved productivity and cost effectiveness associated with VoIP, network managers are utilizing QoE capabilities to support service level agreement (SLA) monitoring, augment fault management and enable click-to-view VoIP diagnostics. Generating an SLA that is contingent not only on IP service metrics, but also on user quality metrics, safeguards VoIP investments and allows business to prioritize user needs. In addition, QoE capabilities can be used to obtain a snapshot of network voice quality performance as experienced by the end user. The results can be displayed graphically using preset thresholds and used to identify serious problems. The analysis capabilities arm network managers with the ability to spot common trends amongst low quality VoIP calls and make adjustments based on the cause. Network managers can even look at an individual call in more detail to identify at what point during the call the voice quality dropped; voice quality degradation is then clearly associated with its root cause.
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Since IP data packets are transient by nature, the future maturation and saturation of IP technology hinges on the quality of the voice, audio, and visual experience delivered. Relying on conventional diagnostic measures to ensure high service levels will not prove effective. Service providers and network managers must be proactive about developing an automated system capable of reporting data that reflects human perception.
It’s Got to be QoE
Reliance on Operation Support Systems (OSS) to manage service assurance on packet networks misses the mark for truly assessing end-user experience. Since OSS is designed to handle data services rather than real-time video and multimedia services, packet loss and delay is not flagged.
Network managers, don’t be fooled. In quad-play services, including IPTV and VoIP, QoS metrics are only viable if they refer to the end-user experience. All other data that service providers compile becomes a string of meaningless figures that does not identify where and when the user is dissatisfied. It is critical to identify lags in QoE since these services hinge on human perception.
The prediction of customer experience through objective measurement metrics is invaluable to monitor networks and will prove crucial to the future success of IP technology.
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