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Note: This blog post is Part 3 of a three-part series on “Future proofing mobile operators’ wireless networks.”
Part 1 of this blog series, “Wi-Fi offloading key to weathering data storm,” explores the central role of the on-device client in effectively offloading network traffic to ease cell site congestion. Part 2, “Every device tells a story” explains how on-device analytics fuels the policies that drive network connection decisions for optimizing subscriber experience. This blog post examines the relationship between quality of service and quality of experience, and presents a strategy for managing both in today’s diverse network environments.
What are QoS and QoE?
QoS is often defined as the objective view of mobile network service, while QoE is defined as the subjective view. QoS involves the collection and analysis of network performance data such as latency, jitter, packet loss, throughput and signal strength to determine the quality of mobile data services.
Subscribers have a different view of the network; however, that is tied to past and present emotional responses of using mobile data services. Do movies stream smoothly? Is video conferencing stable? Are my Skype calls clear? This is how subscribers think. To them, QoS (as perceived through personal experience) is QoE.
Creating an effective strategy across diverse networks
Keeping subscribers satisfied is a tough challenge with today’s diverse networks. Not only must mobile operators address QoE on their own 3G, “4G” and trusted Wi-Fi networks, but they must also monitor subscriber satisfaction off network. More often than not, subscribers are connecting to unmanaged Wi-Fi networks outside of operators’ control, which are prone to congestion and outages. The result: subscriber frustration when data services don’t perform as expected, and immediate blame on the service provider regardless of the network they’re on. Therefore, any strategy to improve QoE must include proactive management of diverse networks both in and out of the operator’s control.
So what is an effective strategy for improving QoE across diverse networks? The answer involves implementing network pre- and post-connection management for enhancing performance across all network technologies.
Pre-connection management
As explained in Part 1 of this series, an intelligent on-device client can help free up congested 3G/4G networks by offloading subscribers to alternative networks such as Wi-Fi. But what if operators had insight to disallow subscribers from connecting to a particular network to prevent a poor user experience in the first place?
Connection management policies should select the optimal network connection. To avoid connections to weak networks, policies should enforce thresholds for the minimum signal strength needed to reach any network before a connection is made. If multiple networks meet the signal strength threshold, the connection logic could then consider network priority. To enhance QoE on untrusted Wi-Fi networks outside the operator’s control, this connection logic should also allow operators to enforce signal strength thresholds for user-defined Wi-Fi networks. It’s like checking the morning traffic report to ensure your route to work is trouble-free prior to getting on the road.
Post-connection management
Post-connection management involves an ongoing assessment of network connections using QoS management policies. It’s like keeping an eye on road conditions and other drivers once you’ve heeded the traffic report and are now headed down the road. To avoid overloading a Wi-Fi AP resulting in bad QoE for users, a post-connect quality assessment should be performed that tests the following conditions:
–Wi-Fi signal strength – monitor the signal strength of the current connection and compare it to acceptable thresholds.
–Internet connectivity – monitor Internet connectivity to determine if the user is able to access Internet services
–Throughput assessment – measure the data transfer rate and latency of the current connection and compare it to acceptable thresholds
If the policy-based QoS thresholds are met, the connection will be maintained. Otherwise, the connection will drop and the device switched to an alternative network using the pre-connect management practices described previously.
Enhanced management with Hotspot 2.0
The emerging Hotspot 2.0 standard is expected to enhance pre-connection management by enabling additional quality assessment without actually connecting to the network. Using the access network query protocol, devices will be able to assess whether or not Internet connectivity exists (vs. a walled garden), and obtain performance metrics from the network, including upstream/downstream bandwidth and network load. Hotspot 2.0, along with an intelligent on-device client, should improve the QoE for end-users by enabling smarter pre-connection decisions and minimizing disruptions to the services being consumed.
Conclusion
Steering subscribers away from roadblocks and onto trouble-free data highways is a daunting task. But employing proactive management practices that rely on dynamic collection and analysis of network and device conditions, together with operator-defined policy, is exactly what operators need to provide superior QoE for their subscribers.
