Nairobi, Kenya, 26 July 2010 This Time for Africa Study Group 12 in a Nutshell Joachim POMY, Senior QoS Expert OPTICOM, Germany ITU-T Workshop

Nairobi, Kenya, 26 July 2010

“This Time for Africa”Study Group 12 in a Nutshell

Joachim POMY,Senior QoS Expert

OPTICOM, Germanywww.opticom.de

ITU-T Workshop on Delivering Good Quality Telecommunication Service

in a Safe Environment in Africa (Nairobi, Kenya, 26 July – 27 July 2010 )

http://www.opticom.de/

Nairobi, Kenya, 26 July 2010 2

Where it All Begins:Real Communication Situation


... and where Technology comes to Play:Employing a Telecommunication System


SG 12 Mandate

‘Performance, QoS and QoE’

Responsible for Recommendations on performance, quality of service (QoS) and quality of experience (QoE) for the full spectrum of terminals, networks and services ranging from speech over fixed circuit-based networks to multimedia applications over networks that are mobile and packet based. Included in this scope are the operational aspects of performance, QoS and QoE.A special focus is given to interoperability to ensure end-to-end users' satisfaction.SG 12 is the Lead SG on QoS and Performancewww.itu.int/ITU-T/studygroups/com12/index.asp

http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/studygroups/com12/index.asp


SG 12 Recommendations

E.420-E.479, E.800-E.859G.100-series, except G.160-, G.180- and G.190-seriesG.1000-seriesI.350-series (including Y.1501/G.820/I.351), I.371, I.378, I.381P-series, except P.900-seriesY.1220-, Y.1530-, Y.1540-, Y.1560-serieswww.itu.int/ITU-T/recommendations/index_sg.aspx?sg=12

http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/recommendations/index_sg.aspx?sg=12


SG 12 Leading Team

ChairmanChuck Dvorak (United States)www.itu.int/net/ITU-T/info/sg12.aspx

Vice ChairmenPaul Barrett (United Kingdom)Vladimir Efimushkin (Russian Federation)Gamal Amin Elsayed (Sudan)Hyung-Soo Kim (Republic of Korea)Qi Feng (China)Catherine Quinquis (France)Akira Takahashi (Japan)Hassan Talib (Morocco)

TSB SupportJudit Katona-Kiss, CounsellorSarah Scott, Assistant

http://www.itu.int/net/ITU-T/info/sg12.aspx


SG 12 Key History Events (1)

Established in 1957Separate SG 16 for Transmission Planning

Old SG 12 just did subjective testing & telephone standardsAt CCITT Plenary Assembly in 1984, these SGs were merged to form the present-day SG 12

During same time SG 12 had a Laboratory WPSubjective & objective testing for loudness of telephonesIn the CCITT Laboratory in Geneva - closed in 1988

Since 1986 Speech Quality Experts Group (SQEG)To better provide the quality requirements and subjective testing for speech coding algorithms standardized by SG 18 (later SG 15, now SG 16)Key role in the standardization of all of the G.711-G.729 speech and audio codecs, and still exists as Q7/12.


SG 12 Key History Events (2)

Since 1997 Video Quality Experts Group (VQEG) With a nucleus of subjective and objective video quality expertise from SG12SG12 still maintains close contact with VQEG

Since the early 1990s work in SG 12 has expandedInto many new technology areas

ATMVoIPMultimediaDigital wirelessIP QoS classesEthernet IPTV, etc.Network PerformanceResource Management.

Since 2008 SG12 was given responsibility forOperational aspects of telecommunication network service qualityResponsibility for the QoS Development Group (QSDG).


WP Chairmen and Vice Chairmen

WP 1 Terminal and multimedia subjective assessment

CHAIR: Catherine Quinquis (France)VICE CHAIR: Qi Feng (China)

WP 2 Objective models & tools for multimedia quality

CHAIR: Klemens Adler (Germany)VICE CHAIR: Paul Barrett (UK)

WP 3 Multimedia QoS and QoECHAIR: Paul Coverdale (China)VICE CHAIR: Akira Takahashi

(Japan)


Joint Coordination Activities

Accessibility and Human factors (JCA-AHF)Conformance and Interop. Testing (JCA-CIT)Home Networking (JCA-HN)Identity Management (JCA-IdM)IPTV (JC-IPTV)Management (JCA-Mgt.) Network Aspects of Identification Systems (including RFID) (JCA-NID)NGN (JCA-NGN)ICTs and Climate Change (JCA-ICT&CC)


Groups overseen by SG12

CarCom Focus GroupHans Gierlich, Chairman

QoS Development GroupLuis Cardoso, Chairman

Regional Group for AfricaDaniel Waturu, Chairman


CarCom Focus Group

In car communicationQuality parameters & testing methods

Interaction of car hands free systems with radioRequirements on sub-system levelRequirements and testing procedures for super-wideband and fullband systemsInteraction with other audio components and systems in the carSpecial requirements/testing procedures for speech recognition systems in carsQuality models: what and how can be applied for the car environment?


QoS Development Group

Encourages wider participation in international QoS activities

Identifies and develop performance monitoring activities for QoS

Identifies procedures & practices for inclusion in the ITU-T Rec.s

Disseminates information relating to QoS techniques & procedures

Development of coordinated approach to study of QoS

Pursues other activities which may improve international QoS


Regional Group for Africa (1)

Regional Group of SG12 on QoS for the Africa Region

Encourages active participation of African administrations, regulators and operators in the work of ITU-TBoosts discussions on QoS challenges facing administrations, operators and regulators in the continent. Encourages participation of African countries in Rapporteur’s meetings, workshops and other ITU-T Study Group 12 events. Encourages African countries to contribute to the development of new/revised ITU-T Recommendations.



Regional Group of SG12 on QoS for the Africa Region

Encourages the African countries to actively participate in the Quality of Service Development Group (QSDG) and other QoS related meetingsEnsuring that ITU-T provides relevant information on QoS standards applicable to telecommunication networks, including test equipment for QoS monitoring and measuring, and assists in their implementationActing as liaison body between African telco administrations, operators, regulators and ITU-T in matters relating to QoS standards



Regional Group of SG12 on QoS for the Africa RegionDevelopment and introduction of new technologies are demand driven

Ideal situation would be to have phased introduction of new technologies in order to give time for industry and consumers to assess their performanceThis would allow administrations to adopt the appropriate regulatory approaches such requiring operators to customize QoS/QoE offering for different tariffsHowever this is not the case presently as technologies keep emerging dailyHowever regulation may be needed where the market competition fails to resolve issues such as QoS/QoEThere are examples where some mobile operators have resorted to massive deployment of half-rate codec to overcome capacity issues resulting in poor QoS (MOS values)

Due to the above and many other reasons Africa needs some minimum level of QoS/QoE in the form of a “Guidelines” where different countries can refer to when preparing their respective QoS/QoE KPIs


Evolution of Voice Quality Impairments


Study Group 12 Recommendations (1)

Of importance for the African Region:E.801: Framework for Service Quality AgreementE.802: Framework and methodologies for the determination and application of QoS parametersG.107: The E-model: a computational model for use in transmission planningG.108: Application of the E-model: A planning guideG.109: Definition of categories of speech transmission qualityG.113: Transmission impairments due to speech processingG.114: One-way transmission time



Of importance for the African Region:G.131: Talker echo and its controlG.1000: Communications Quality of Service: A framework and definitionsG.1010: End-user multimedia QoS categoriesG.1011 (draft): Reference guide to Quality of Experience assessment methodologiesG.1020: Performance parameter definitions for quality of speech and other voiceband applications utilizing IP networksG.1050: Network model for evaluating multimedia transmission performance over Internet ProtocolP.505: One-view visualization of speech quality measurement results



Of importance for the African Region:P.561: In-service non-intrusive measurement device – Voice service measurementsP.562: Analysis and interpretation of INMD voice-service measurementsP.563: Single-ended method for objective speech quality assessment in narrow-band telephony applicationsP.800: Methods for subjective determination of transmission qualityP.800.1: Mean Opinion Score (MOS) terminologyP.805: Subjective evaluation of conversational qualityP.862: Perceptual evaluation of speech quality (PESQ)



Of importance for the African Region:P.1010: Fundamental voice transmission objectives for VoIP terminals and gatewaysP.1110: WB hands-free communication in motor vehiclesY.1221: Traffic control and congestion control in IP-based networksY.1530: Call processing performance for voice service in hybrid IP networksY.1541: Network performance objectives for IP-based servicesY.1542: Framework for achieving end-to-end IP performance objectivesY.1543: Measurements in IP networks for inter-domain performance assessment


Hot Topic in SG 12:POLQA™ - Rec. P.863 (0)



New POLQA standard winner of rigorous technical competitionCarried out by ITU-T to define technology update for PESQ/P.862PESQ was state-of-the-art in almost any telecom service globallyPOLQA - “Perceptual Objective Listening Quality Assessment” - offers new level of benchmarking capability

to determine the voice quality of mobile network services

POLQA unified solution by OPTICOM, SwissQual and TNOwas selected as the winning approachthe underlying algorithms were subjected to extensive testsover 45,000 speech samples from a broad range of targeted usage scenarioswide array of tests covers the entire range of today’s telephony quality over the last ten years test and measurement vendors have widely adopted ITU-T Recommendation P.862/PESQ (“Perceptual Evaluation of Speech Quality”) and there are now more than 20.000 installations worldwiderecently developed speech codecs for 3G and 4G, and new techniques for delivering an enhanced voice quality experience have generated strong demand for an update to this industry standardPOLQA is the answer the industry has been looking for

http://www.opticom.de/

http://www.swissqual.com/

http://www.tno.nl/index.cfm?Taal=2



POLQA coalition formed by OPTICOM, SwissQual and TNO is the outcome of the competitive standardization process run by the ITU-T An expert group within ITU-T spent more than four years evaluating various candidate algorithms to find a suitable successor to older standardsAn enormous amount of effort has gone into ensuring POLQA works quickly and accurately

For example, more than 100,000 samples of mobile and VoIP phone calls were used to train and optimize the POLQA algorithm POLQA is superior to existing standards, and clearly has overcome all known issues and limitations of PESQ

The limitations of existing standards that are now addressed by POLQACDMAChinese 3G TD-SCDMA

POLQA will also offer immediate, strong support for testing of new wideband 4G/LTE networks delivering HD-quality voice servicesTests carried out during the POLQA evaluation included future technologies such as

Unified CommunicationsNext Gen Networks4G/LTEHD Voice, i.e. "wide-band" and "super-wide-band"



TNO's Senior Researcher Dr. John Beerends, who introduced the first perceptual speech quality metrics to the ITU-T in 1996 and was co-author of the PESQ standard stated:

We received a clear message from the telecoms industry, demanding a uniform successor of the PESQ standard, and I’m delighted that the rigorous testing that has gone into this evaluation shows clearly that the jointly-developed POLQA solution will be superior to existing and alternative approaches.”

More information on POLQA can be found in the technical white paper “POLQA: The Next Generation in Voice Quality Testing” available for download from http://www.polqa.info.

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Evolution of ITU-T Recommendations for Voice Quality Evolution of ITU-T Recommendations for Voice Quality Testing (P.86x - Full Reference MOS-LQO)Testing (P.86x - Full Reference MOS-LQO)

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Any questions ?

Joachim PomyTelecommunications & Int'l StandardsGermanyTel.: +49 177 78 71958Email: [email protected]

Documents

Nairobi, Kenya, 26 July 2010 This Time for Africa Study Group 12 in a Nutshell Joachim POMY, Senior QoS Expert OPTICOM, Germany ITU-T Workshop