Psytechnics CTO: QoS Is Insufficient for Real-Time Applications

Quality of service is a measure of network performance not customer satisfaction with service quality, said Mike Hollier, CTO of Psytechnics, speaking Wednesday at the Billing & OSS World 2008 Conference and Expo in Chicago regarding delivering superior quality of experience – a term he suggests as the new yardstick for service quality.

“QoS is necessary, but not sufficient to make sure QoE is good,” Hollier said. QoS in an IP network is determined by measures, such as latency, jitter and packet loss. However, it does not measure noise, echo or distortions, which impact the quality of real-time applications, such as a phone call.

As a result, he said, an IP service provider can get green lights from his QoS performance management equipment, but still have customer complaints about low service quality. What’s worse is the provider has no idea why.

Hollier said this situation demands a new generation of voice and video performance management solutions that measure IP network and application performance. Such gear would need to monitor applications on a per-stream basis to get a true picture of QoE, he said.

The importance of measuring QoE has implications for the billing and CRM systems, he added. As for the billing systems, for example, Hollier said it’s going to become increasingly important for service providers to offer differentiated voice or video service. To do that requires proof of such quality in order to bill it. Knowing that QoE was not met also can inform proactive customer care to acknowledge the deficit and, if needed, apply credits.

The ability to measure it also impacts service creation as it can inform the parameters of the service.

Hollier said that while the need for QoE is in real-time environments, he expects that it will be extended to non-real-time environments, too.

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