Quality of Experience (QoE) in Telecommunications Services

Introduction

In the ever-evolving telecom industry, customer experience is taking center stage as a crucial competitive differentiator. With data speed becoming a commodity and little room for differentiation, telecom providers are actively seeking novel ways to distinguish themselves. Considering the importance of Quality of Experience (QoE) as one of the priorities can lead to increase customer satisfaction, competitive advantage, network utilization, superior user experience, brand reputation, cost reduction and ultimately driving business growth and success.

Definition of Quality of Experience

? ITU-T: “The overall acceptability of an application or service, as perceived subjectively by the end-user.”

? ETSI: “A measure of user performance based on both objective and subjective psychological measures of using an ICT service or product.”

? Practically: “The degree of your delight or annoyance over a product, application or service.” [Qualinet]

The Qualinet White paper [40] adds nuance to their:

? Practically+: “Is the degree of delight or annoyance of the user of an application or service. It results from the fulfillment of his or her expectations with respect to the utility and/or enjoyment of the application or service in the light of the user’s personality and current state.”

This definition close to what is in my mind and I can add: Quality of Experience (QoE) is to continuously adding unforeseen values to the users, making their lives easier, and can extending beyond the boundaries of ISP/Operator service.

Challenges in Enhancing QoE

Elevating QoE is clearly a crucial goal, but it is not an easy one to achieve. Many ISPs/Operators face difficulties and obstacles in their efforts to improve QoE

1. Defining QoE: Firstly, understanding the true essence of QoE, otherwise we’ll not be able to measure QoE reliability and accurately. Yes, we all know that QoE is Subjective, what counts as a good experience varies across users (not subscriber only), so objective tools are not enough. It's not only involving service performance measured by KPI, QoS, customer satisfaction, user expectations or acceptability as perceived by the end-user, it includes degree of delight/annoyance of the user. Good QoE continuously adding values to the users that are unforeseen and make life easier for end-user.

2. User-Centric support team: User-centricity is not just a buzzword, but a mindset that guides every decision and action in customers support process, it means putting the users and their needs at the center of everything we do, from defining the problem to evaluating the solution.

3. Lack of QoE Management Department: Many ISPs /Operators lack dedicated QoE management department responsible for developing a comprehensive, and effective QoE strategies that delivers high quality of experience to the customers. The department could be staffed by a team of experts in the field of QoE, service technical support, including network engineers, data analysts, and customer service representatives.

4. Customer Premises Equipment (CPE): In telecommunications, CPE is any device located at the subscriber's premises and connected with a carrier's telecommunications circuit at the demarcation point. CPE is very important aspect of the service delivery chain and become a major focus area for telecoms. For example, LTE 5G routers considered Customer Premises Equipment (CPE).

Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) Testing and evaluating are very important with regard to QoE. Currently most of the ISPs /Operators perform basic testing, include compliance, branding, available features and basic performance. They don’t go the extra mile and customize the device to enhance customer experience. Most of the time the default access username/password left unchanged, also, user interface (UI) not tailored to the customer, testing and evaluating of WiFi interface not fully performed, etc... There are several things that can be customized to enhance performance and experience. Most of the time the CPE ordered with the default configuration including RJ11 & 4 Ethernet ports, for example, if VoLTE/VoIP service not required and customer using WiFi not wire, you can remove the RJ11 (telephone interface) from the configuration and have only one Ethernet port. This will save around 5 dollars for each CPE purchase.

CPE router firmware update is crucial for addressing security vulnerabilities, fixing bugs, introducing new features and improving overall router performance. To be able to remotely access and manage the CPE, TR-069 protocol defined by Broadband Forum should be supported by the CPE, to help remotely management of Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) connected to an Internet Protocol (IP) network.

5. Technical Expertise: Lack of experienced technical persons who can visualize the service end-to-end and identifies customer problem instantly. Knowing how to measure QoE and manage it proactively has traditionally been extremely difficult, required network visibility and data communications high experienced person. Identifying problems in the network and prioritizing fixes is not easy to do, especially at scale.

6. Timely Issue Resolution: Timely Identifying and resolving network outages and service degradation promptly is crucial for enhancing user QoE in today’s environment. You need service-aware end-to-end visibility. Complete network visibility and can improve mean time to repair (MTTR) and help in troubleshooting problems faster so you can protect revenue streams, improve customer experience level and reduce churn.

Case Studies

I will start with one example in this post to discuss problems facing customers and frustrating them due to bad Quality of Experience (QoE) management and continue with case studies in the following posts.

Impact of Internet Speed Consistency on Customer Quality of Experience (QoE)

(Case Study 1)

Consistency of a broadband internet connection has a deep impact on users' experiences. The level of consistency directly affects the Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE) for internet users.

The below graphs represent typical download rates over time from two different broadband Internet providers (ISPs), both providing an average of 5 Mbps, which service provider should get the higher quality…

In the Fig. above, while both ISPs average 5 Mbps, ISP A provides a consistent bandwidth of 5 Mbps, while ISP B provides fluctuating bandwidth.

So, while these two ISPs may provide similar bandwidth, they have entirely different QoS/QoE models, with consistency being defined (Idle) as:

If you subscribed for a 5 Mbps connection from ISP B to deploy an application that needs 4 to 5 Mbps, that application will fail, because the performance of the connection fluctuates and go below 4 Mbps at some times. But if you subscribed for a 5 Mbps connection from ISP A you will note face any problem.

Note: If you run download speed test for both service you are unlikely to notice much difference because the speed test app measures line speed, not line quality (in ISP B you may get slightly different results when you run the test several times, because of the fluctuations).

If your Internet usage is simply browsing websites and downloading files then you are unlikely to notice much difference in the services offered by these two ISPs, however if, you are using applications that are tailored to a real-time such as video, online conferencing and VoIP, then the consistent service offered by ISP-A will deliver a better quality of service than the fluctuating service offered by ISP-B.

Customer subscribed to ISP B will place complain thru Call Center, then Call Center agent will check customer connection resources and tell him there is no issues with his service and ask him to check his own side and close the ticket. Frustrated by persistent problem, the customer submits another complaint, hoping for a resolution. In response the ISP dispatches a technician, who will do a download test (line speed) and show the customer that he is getting what he paid for (~5Mbp) and may even suggest upgrading to a higher speed plan, and then close the ticket with code (FnF) Fault not Found. What do you think the customer will do next…?

When I am working with one of the Telecom operators as head of the Internet Technical Support section, I used to investigate technicians feedback and focused in the FnF code. We uncovered several network issues that had an impact on numerous customers. In upcoming posts, I’ll provide specific examples of these problems.

Lessons Learned:

1. Attentive Listening: Pay close attention to customer concerns to truly understand their pain points.

2. Customer-Centric: Always value and act on customer feedback.

3. Escalation: If frontline agents or technicians cannot resolve an issue, escalate it.

4. Customer-Oriented Culture: Cultivate a customer-centric culture within support teams.

5. Dedicated QoE Departments: Establish dedicated QoE departments to boost business outcomes.

6. Expertise Matters: Expertise in visualizing the end-to-end service and data communications is crucial for enhancing customer QoE and training support staff.

By prioritizing Quality of Experience, telecom providers can not only differentiate themselves in a crowded market but also improve customer satisfaction and drive business success.