The key to reliable operational performance of UC deployments is
balanced treatment of both Quality of Service (QoS) and VoIP Quality of
Experience (QoE). These are two sides of the same coin, reports
UCStrategies.com in its new whitepaper entitled “Critical
Success Factors in Design and Performance Management of UC Networks.”
The whitepaper is available on the UC Strategies website at http://www.ucstrategies.com/.
The QoS vs. QoE debate has raged hot and heavy in large part due to the
competitive tension between application vendors, network vendors and a
new wave of UC vendors. The debate centers around the user’s
perception of quality when hearing VoIP calls. The whitepaper explores
these issues from the perspective of the Business Decision Maker
considering UC deployments for their organization. By examining how the
delays, echoes and errors caused by network congestion and multiple
network conversions (or hops), and repeated analog to digital and
protocol conversions by the various codecs degrade the quality of
realtime voice communications, the paper provides key insights to
network managers. The paper goes on to analyze whether certain codecs
may better enable quality transmission by adjusting various parameters,
and examines the effects of applying priority treatment to voice calls,
via QoS application. In addition, the added measurement of the user’s
Quality of Experience (QoE) is introduced as another element to be
considered when planning UC deployments to deliver business benefits.
The conclusions, reached by authors Paul B. Robinson, PhD and David H.
Yedwab, founding partners of Market Strategy and Analytics Partners,
LLC, and associates of UCStrategies.com indicate that companies need to:
1. Use priority scheduling for voice-class traffic.
2. Actively minimize one-way delay. Latency should not exceed 100 ms
one way for toll-quality voice and must not exceed 150 ms one way
for acceptable quality voice.
3. Keep (random) packet loss well below 1%.
4. Rationalize the use of speech compression codecs for wireless
networks and packet networks to minimize transcoding issues.
5. Focus on both the network and the endpoints as the strategy for
implementing good QoE.
For more information and to access the white paper, visit www.ucstrategies.com.
About UCStrategies.com
UC Strategies is an industry resource for enterprises, vendors, system
integrators, and anyone interested in the growing Unified Communications
arena. A supplier of objective information on Unified Communications, UC
Strategies is supported by an alliance of leading communication industry
Advisors, Analysts, and Consultants, who have worked in the various
segments of Unified Communications since its inception.
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