Network Performance Criteria for Telecommunication Traffic Types driven by Quality of Experience

Abstract

A common reason for changing the chosen service provider is user perception of service. Quality of Experience (QoE) describes the end user's perception of service while using it. A frequent cause of QoE degradation is inadequate traffic routing where, other than throughput, selected routes do not satisfy minimum network requirements for the given service or services. In order to enable QoE-driven routing, per-traffic-type defined routing criteria are required. For the purpose of identifying services of interest, we analyzed traffic within a telecom operator network. Next, we defined testbed measurements that explored the impact of packet loss and delay on user QoE for video, voice, and management traffic. For video services, we performed separate measurements for multicast delivery, unicast HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), and unicast Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) traffic. Applying a threshold to QoE values, from the measured dependencies we extracted minimum network performance criteria for the investigated different types of traffic. Finally, we define relevant service classes, for relevant services, we propose the retention or correction of QoE/QOS criteria defined years ago to correspond to traffic scenarios in modern telecom operator networks, and we propose their traffic class priorities.