QoE and QoS monitoring for IPTV a different approach. Author: Dimetis GmbH June 2007

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1 QoE and QoS monitoring for IPTV a different approach Author: Dimetis GmbH info@dimetis.de June 2007

2 Current Situation Most carriers are nowadays interested to see whether or not customers are happy with the services they are being provided by them. Particularly the IPTV service is gaining a lot of traction in this regard. The so called QoE (Quality of Experience) has been used by various Independent Software Vendors (ISV) in different ways. They are trying to attack this problem by various means. Some are adding additional software and/or hardware to the STB devices, which turns out to have couple of issues. First the so called light agents in form of hardware (chips) or software have to be placed on the STBs. According to the STB vendors however this cannot work all the time, particularly because of the cost factor for hardware, and restricted memory availability in software. Other ISV vendors are pursuing a subjective approach (the so called visual test). Some vendors even produce dump files of the STBs and put them on the server. A post-process algorithm will data mine the data and produce the SLA results. Common to all this approach is the fact that QoE is not measured in real-time and/or can be performed for a selected number of end-users, which may not reflect the real QoE of all users. Most importantly those approaches impose the danger of violation of privacy rights particularly in Europe. Centralized real-time QoE monitoring in telecom/broadcast the Dimetis approach The IP stream is traversing the following networks from SHE (Super-Headend) to the customer: - Superheadend (SHE) - Core Network - Metro Network - Access Network

3 Currently the IPTV stream is managed in the following stack: MPEG2/4,ASI RTP IP An IPTV stream is traversing a broadcast/telecom network from SHE (super-headend) to the end-users thru the following demarcation points: - SHE - core network - metro network - access network Dimetis patent pending RT-QoE provide a centralized software based approach to measure the Quality-of-Experience (QoE) for telecom operators. Operators will be able to monitor not only the typical RFC4445 based MDI matrix but also provide them with the content quality at each demarcation exit point according to ETSI standard TR The RT-QoE is a two layer approach eliminating the need for additional hardware based quality of content measurements at various demarcations points. RT-QoE is a two way software based monitoring approach based on Dimetis product modules BOSS Broadcast NetView (BBN) and BOSS Stream Recorder (BSR). The BOSS Broadcast NetView (BBN) is an umbrella management for QoS monitoring (e.g. compliant to RFC4445). The following parameters are e.g. monitored in a probe agnostic manner: Bandwidth: minimum and maximum RTP layer packet loss RTP layer OOPs (Out-of-Order Packets) RTP layer packet duplicates IAT [Inter-Arrival times], typically in milliseconds The BOSS Stream Recorder (BSR) can monitor based on the ESTI standard TR per service the following port properties: - First priority o TS sync loss o Sync byte error o PAT error o Continuity count error o PMT error o PID error - Second priority o Transport error o CRC error o PCR error

4 o - Third priority o NIT error o SI repetition error o Moreover BSR also recognizes black frame, freeze frame, video + audio loss in the latest release. The from BSR captured and monitored data can be feed into BBN and allow for a centralized monitoring too. RT-QoE will support with the following unique features: - HW agnostic - real-time monitoring - The centralized platform can support both tier3 and tier1 requirements with the same platform - Supports multiple content formats e.g. MPEG2, MPEG4, DVB-ASI (TR 101 ETR 290) - Up to 50 simultaneous IPTV channels for content analysis - Up to 540 simultaneous IPTV multicast monitoring per probe Typically one BSR will be sufficient to monitor the quality of content. The two way approach will ensure permanent measurements at RTP layer. By measuring at the RTP layer throughout the demarcation points, IPTV streams are monitored end-to-end. Any violation of MDI matrix will lead automatically to a QoS alarm. However in case QoS is guarantied at the RTP layer and QoS is ensured at the content layer (MPEG2,4) the delivery of content will be guarantied to the end-users up to the access network.

5 The RT-QoE has the following benefits to the operators: - Provides a truly centralized QoE measurement for content in real time - By dramatically reducing the CAPEX supporting for a low-cost monitoring tool - More IPTV streams can be monitored than a typical HW based probe - Allowing the users to monitor whatever, whenever and how often they want to measure based on ever changing requirements - IPTV stream are no longer treated as separated packets rather as a continious stream The Dimetis patent pending approach will be enhanced by adding the access component. Cisco BAC (Broadband Access Configuration) can now be integrated into BBN. It provides a truly end-to-end IPTV monitoring view. By obtaining customer s STB data and perform a statistical monitoring as well as root-cause-analysis, operators are able to interact, before customer s QoE are affected.