IPTV Technology Featured Article

Symmetricom (News - Alert) (www.symmetricom.com) designs, manufactures and markets atomic clocks and network synchronization and timing solutions used in wireline and wireless telecom networks and enterprise IT networks.

The quality of “real-time” communications such as voice and video is predicated on time itself, a critical variable in nearly every electronic system. Determining a precise time and/or frequency becomes important whenever mission critical systems, such as telecom networks, are synchronized (for example, so-called isochronous systems and networks such as SONET derive their timing from one accurate, primary reference source). Symmetricom is a major player in the generation, synchronization and distribution of precise time and frequency signals.

The suggestive relationship between timing on networks and Quality of Experience (QoE) led Symmetricom to the formation of the their QoE Assurance Division, which came about as a result of Symmetricom’s January 3, 2007 acquisition of QoSmetrics, Inc., a privately held provider of QoE solutions for IPTV and other triple play services.

In furtherance of their research in this area, Symmetricom recently commissioned Multimedia Research Group (MRG) to assess current operator requirements for IPTV (News - Alert) test, measurement and monitoring solutions. In December 2007, MRG surveyed IPTV executives (VP, Director, Manager-level) from 12 Tier 1 (very large or regional incumbents) and Tier 2 (mid-size, non incumbents) telco service providers in North America.

The survey focused on gaining insight into the recognition of quality issues, the use of video quality monitoring, and where the video quality issues are coming from. The survey also addressed analysis of video content, video delivery and test infrastructure, customer satisfaction and budgeting for video test, measurement and monitoring solutions.

The highlights of the study are quite surprising:

--84% reported video quality monitoring as critical or a very important part of their video initiative.

--78% say video quality is a main reason for high volumes of support calls.

--77% say video quality is a main reason for customer churn.

--Over 72% of all video quality problems come from access networks and the home.

--77% say existing video quality monitoring solutions are not accurate.

--78% say existing video quality monitoring solutions are not end-to-end.

--Over 90% of respondents were notified about service quality problems from subscriber calls.

--Less than half of respondents conduct deep content inspection into MPEG transport stream content – 55.4% don’t do any MPEG analysis at all. Respondents that cited “other” said that their test/monitoring focus was primarily at the network Layers (2/3), for packet loss and jitter.

When asked what services are most likely to cause video problems right now, respondents indicated HDTV (42%); 33% Other (problems with CPE and home wiring); SDTV (17%); and VOD (8%). Nearly 40% of video issues appear to occur in the home (not the network or service provider), yet many respondents reported a lack of the necessary tools to measure end-user quality in the home. When asked what services are most likely to cause video problems one year from now, the same services were cited, with VOD (Video on Demand) increasing in the responsibility: HDTV (30%); Other (30%); VOD (21%); and SDTV (7%).

The report also says that, when asked the reason for high call volumes from subscribers, 77.7% of the respondents cited service quality problems. They also stated overwhelmingly that service quality problems are the primary cause of customer churn.

The study reveals the importance of test tools and the need to use them intensely to maintain the video quality of IPTV services, lest customers become dissatisfied and abandon whole triple play subscriptions.

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Richard Grigonis is an internationally-known technology editor and writer. Prior to joining TMC (News - Alert) as Executive Editor of its IP Communications Group, he was the Editor-in-Chief of VON Magazine (News - Alert) from its founding in 2003 to August 2006. He also served as the Chief Technical Editor of CMP Media’s Computer Telephony magazine, later called Communications Convergence (News - Alert), from its first year of operation in 1994 until 2003. In addition, he has written five books on computers and telecom (including the Computer Telephony Encyclopedia and Dictionary of IP Communications). To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.