ArQoS®: System to monitor QoS/QoE in VoIP

The evolution of telecommunications technology from circuit to packet switching, in which the Internet is the great paradigm, offers nowadays more flexibility in services and higher efficiency in the transport infrastructure that was not experienced before. As consequence, several new services have emerged. Among them, Voice over IP (VoIP) is, indubitably, one of the most popular, mainly because it allows anyone to make low cost voice calls, making it a very attractive service. This is perhaps one of the main factors responsible for the fast development of VoIP technology. However, IP networks were not designed for services with real time requirements and factors like delay, jitter, codec distortions and packet loss lead to degradations that directly influence de VoIP user experience. The quality experienced by these users is highly dependent on network conditions and also on the subjective experience perceived by them. Thus, new challenges have brought with this evolution of telecommunications networks. In order to meet the assigned Service Level Agreement (SLA´s), service providers around the world need to monitor and guarantee the agreed Quality of Service (QoS) to its customers. Consequently, an emergent way to measure QoS arises in the field of the telecommunications sector: the Quality of Experience (QoE) assessment and monitor that takes into account that subjective experience. Thus, a new challenging need arises: the development of systems and methods for assessing quality of experience, such that, network operators and service providers can actually know how users evaluate the quality of the service provided to them. In this paper, a system for assessing QoS/QoE is described: the ArQoS^®. This is an integrated system provided by Portugal Telecom Inovação (PTIn) which implements QoE assessment methods to assess the networks performance and their telecommunications services. Beyond the existing methods already supported by- the system, a novel QoE monitor for VoIP services was recently integrated as a result of fundamental research carried out at PTIn Labs. The ArQoS^® is a probing system based on different types of probes, actually comprising two systems operating in two different modes: the active system (intrusive mode) and the passive system (non-intrusive mode).