1

Italtel and Italtel Logo are registered trademarks of Italtel SpA. All contents are Italtel SpA Copyright 2016. All rights reserved.

This document is intended for the addressee(s) only and is confidential and/or may contain legally privileged information;

it may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without Italtel’s prior written consent.

Brochure

i-QAC Italtel Quality Assurance Center

2

i-QAC – Italtel Quality Assurance Center

Italtel and Italtel Logo are registered trademarks of Italtel SpA. All contents are Italtel SpA Copyright 2016. All rights reserved.

This document is intended for the addressee(s) only and is confidential and/or may contain legally privileged information;

it may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without Italtel’s prior written consent.

From Quality of Service to Quality of Experience

The need to retain customers and reduce churn rate without recurring to a mere price competition

has led many Telco Operators to evolve from the concept of Quality of Service (QoS) to the wider

idea of Quality of Experience (QoE), where the key

factor is not the measured value of network

performances parameters, but the perception that

customers have of the provided service.

For this reason, QoE improvements should be achieved

not only optimizing QoS measurable parameters, but also leveraging the evolution of Monitoring

activities, carried out as near as possible to end customer’s premises. Only this kind of mindset

can lead from the simple measurement of Key Performance Indicators to the real evaluation of

customer satisfaction.

Therefore, Service Providers need cost-effective tools enabling the possibility to evaluate QoE to

the best possible extent, without having a disruptive effect on live traffic.

QoS measures the quali ty of suppl ied serv ice whi le QoE represents the level of subject ive customer 's exper iences with a vendor

3

i-QAC – Italtel Quality Assurance Center

Italtel and Italtel Logo are registered trademarks of Italtel SpA. All contents are Italtel SpA Copyright 2016. All rights reserved.

This document is intended for the addressee(s) only and is confidential and/or may contain legally privileged information;

it may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without Italtel’s prior written consent.

QoE: which are the factors?

Performing a good appraisal of QoE level, Service Providers can anticipate potentially critical

conditions and take the relevant measures to improve customers’ retention, without lowering

prices, thus saving Average Revenue Per User (ARPU). A distributed, flexible and automated

monitoring and testing system prevents engineers

from repetitive, manual tasks and poor added-value

activities, resulting in improved processes and

OpEx reduction.

Two main factors contribute to consolidate user’s opinion regarding the perceived quality of his/her

experience:

Quality of User experience: How good is the supplied service? Typical questions are: Are

calls successfully established with a good connection? Is the voice quality good? How long

does it take to setup calls? Are there any service interruptions?

Quality of Customer experience: How good is the interaction with the Service Provider?

Typical questions are: How much time to get my new line/service working? Is my bill

correct? Has the helpdesk operator really understood my problem? How long did it take to

have it solved?

In order to improve these factors, internal operator’s structures need to be analyzed and optimized,

with particular attention to:

Voice Quality

Traffic Quality

Denial of Service Prevention

Accounting and Billing

Fraud Management

Quality of Assurance Process

Granting a long life to reached QoE level: Italtel approach

The key factor is not the measured value of network performances parameters, but the

perception that customers have of the service when they need it.

For this reason, QoE improvement should be achieved not only by optimization of QoS

measurable parameters, but also on the evolution of monitoring activities getting as near as

possible to customer’s premises. Only this kind of mindset will take from the mere measurement

of KPIs and KQIs to the real measurement of customer satisfaction.

A good QoE level reduces the necess ity for Serv ice Prov ider to lower pr ices and reduce Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) in order to improve customers retent ion

4

i-QAC – Italtel Quality Assurance Center

Italtel and Italtel Logo are registered trademarks of Italtel SpA. All contents are Italtel SpA Copyright 2016. All rights reserved.

This document is intended for the addressee(s) only and is confidential and/or may contain legally privileged information;

it may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without Italtel’s prior written consent.

Italtel’s approach to this idea is

Network Tomography applied to IP

networks and it’s achieved by means of

i-QAC (Italtel Quality Assurance

Center) solution.

Italtel has developed i-QAC, a vertical

tool that helps Service Providers to

measure customer experience.

Proactively stimulating the network, i-

QAC acquires information about the

status and level of perceived service

quality.

i-QAC is easy-to-use and scalable. It

easily adapts to the characteristics of

the tested infrastructure, in terms of

network insertion simplicity and

scalability.

Italtel i-QAC makes use of Active

Intelligent Agents cooperating with

each other and stimulating the network

from its edge, in order to extract

information about network health and

QoE level. Agents can be connected to various fixed and mobile access networks, by means

of dedicated gateways. The traffic simulations foster a proactive approach to the detection of

service degradation, thus reducing the chances of service disruption.

i-QAC can monitor several different types of service (voice, fax, video, web surfing, etc.). Key

Performance Indicators (KPI) and Key Quality Indicators (KQI) are calculated according to

standards (ITU and IETF).

i-QAC provides easy and quick access to measured data and statistical analyses by means of

built-in and configurable queries, graphics and reports. The integration with Network and

It’s a term derived from medical language indicating the

statistical inference techniques that allow discovering

several network characteristics using specific stimuli sent

from the external of the network.

Using these techniques, several important information can

be obtained without any collaboration by network nodes

(routers, switches, etc.).

Applying this concept to IP networks, Italtel offers a set of

Active Intelligent Agents cooperating each other and

stimulating the network from its edge in order to extract

fundamental information about network health and, more

important, about the level of QoE perceived by customers.

WHAT IS NETWORK TOMOGRAPHY?

5

i-QAC – Italtel Quality Assurance Center

Italtel and Italtel Logo are registered trademarks of Italtel SpA. All contents are Italtel SpA Copyright 2016. All rights reserved.

This document is intended for the addressee(s) only and is confidential and/or may contain legally privileged information;

it may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without Italtel’s prior written consent.

Service Assurance Systems can be implemented, in order to increase visibility and prevent

service degradation.

Key Features

Easy to use administration

Alarms, advanced thresholds and event analysis

Advanced test plant managment

Statistical analysis

Detailed performance charts

End-to-end network path analysis

Current and historical ddata

Built-in and configurable performance reports

KPIs, KQIs and measurements

Telephony

ESQ, MOS-LQO

R-Factor, MOS-CQE, GoB, PoW

PDD, CST, ASR, ABR, NER

IP Packet Loss, RTT, Jitter (ICMP, UDP), OWD

Path MTU, Path Jitter

6

i-QAC – Italtel Quality Assurance Center

Italtel and Italtel Logo are registered trademarks of Italtel SpA. All contents are Italtel SpA Copyright 2016. All rights reserved.

This document is intended for the addressee(s) only and is confidential and/or may contain legally privileged information;

it may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without Italtel’s prior written consent.

Bandwidth FTP

Bulk Transfer Capacity

Applications

FTP

HTTP

DNS

Facebook

Twitter

YouTube

Skype

Web navigation

Ookla Speedtest

Netflix

Main characteristics

QoE measurement Strongly oriented approach to measuring customer experience obtained by stimulating the network close to Customer’s premises in order to extract information about the status and level of service quality perceived

Proactive caring support

The traffic simulations favor a proactive approach to the detection of service degradation for the customer base and thus allow to reduce the chances of disruption

Easy to use and Scalable

It easily adapts to Operator’s needs and characteristics of service infrastructure in terms of ease of network insertion and scalability. By means of proper gateways Agents can be connected to various fixed and mobile access networks. It provides easy and quick access to measured data, KPIs and statistical analyses by means of built-in and configurable queries, graphics and reports

CAPEX/OPEX reduction

implementing a distributed, flexible and automated monitoring and testing system releasing engineers from repetitive tasks and poor added value activities

Versatility The addition of appropriate SW modules can leverage the use of the same platform for monitoring new services (fax, video, DTMF, http surfing, protocol testing, etc.)

KPI/KQI Calculation of KPI/KQI according to reference standards (ITU and IETF)

Integrability allows the integration with monitoring functions of Network and Service Assurance Systems, in order to increase visibility of situations and prevent degradation of service.

About Italtel

Working where Telecommunications meet Information Technology, Italtel addresses some of the main technological challenges the world of communications is facing nowadays. IP Networking, Cloud, Network Function Virtualization, SDN, WebRTC, IoT, are just some of the areas where the company is present with end-to-end solutions. Italtel offer includes proprietary products, engineering and network consultancy services, managed services and solutions. Italtel counts more than 40 customers worldwide, and among them there are several major Service Providers and multinational Enterprises. In addition to having a leading position in the Italian market, Italtel has focused its foreign operations on EMEA markets and Latin America.

Italtel S.p.A. Via Reiss Romoli Settimo Milanese 20019 – Milano – Italy Marketing_communication@italtel.com

www.italtel.com Follow us