1. Current QoS Policy Challenges
Workshop on “Monitoring Quality of Service and Quality of Experience of Multimedia Services in Broadband/Internet Networks” (Maputo, Mozambique, April 2014)
Current QoS Policy Challenges
Joachim Pomy
OPTICOM, Germany
Version : 11 December 2008

2. [Content] Current QoS Policy Challenges Introduction Global Challenges
ITRs: Setting the stage for a connected world
Current QoS Policy Challenges
Introduction
Global Challenges
The ITU’s past and current Work on QoS
International Agreements
Proposals for dealing with the matter
Summary
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3. Quality of Service (QoS)
End-to-end QoS
Quality of Service (QoS)
The totality of characteristics of a telecommunications service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated and implied needs of the user of the service
Characteristics can be measured by objective means
level meter
delay counter
etc.
Often confused with Network Performance (NP)
IETF uses QoS to describe the performance of functional services in network layer models
QoS often more precisely named as "end-to-end QoS"
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4. User Perception influenced by much more
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5. Introduction
User Perception of quality not limited to the objective characteristics at the man-machine interface
For end users counts the quality that they personally experience during their use of a telecommunication service
Quality of Experience (QoE) takes into account additional subjective parameters
stemming from user expectations
from the context, in which the user is embedded during the use of the service, such as
personal mood
environment
potential discrepancy between the service offered and individual users reading additional features into the service
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6. [Content] Current QoS Policy Challenges Introduction Global Challenges
ITRs: Setting the stage for a connected world
Current QoS Policy Challenges
Introduction
Global Challenges
The ITU’s past and current Work on QoS
International Agreements
Proposals for dealing with the matter
Summary
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7. Global Challenges Move from traditional networks
based on dedicated service-channels
Towards on a single packet based transport infrastructure
With integrated (transport) services
Pre-defined transmission planning of QoS has become a major challenge:
Fixed allocation of resources is no longer possible
Packet-based network quality parameter requirements are pretty undefined
Responsibility for end-to-end QoS has been lost
Services must be considered as applications executed in the terminal devices
IP networks cannot provide for self standing end-to-end QoS
Only transport classes, which enable QoS differentiation
QoS Challenges depend strongly on role of stakeholders
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8. Challenges for Standards Developing Organizations (SDOs)
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI)
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
Have collective knowledge and expertise with respect to QoS
related to the change of paradigms in networks and terminals
regarding to planning and possible regulation of end-to-end QoS
Are contribution-driven
If stakeholders
rely on industry standards instead of globally recognized standards
wish to keep control of their intellectual property
wish to not invest resources in globally recognized standards
SDOs must try to convince industry leaders
For example in dedicated events such as conferences
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9. Challenges for Network Equipment Manufacturers
Rely on the QoS related performance requests (of network and system functions) from network operators and service providers
Ideally, network equipment manufacturers would participate in the QoS work of SDOs
To standardize the QoS and performance requirements between several parties involved in the network business
Often no visible incentive on the short term
Return of investment cannot easily be seen
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10. Challenges for Terminal Device Manufacturers
Confronted with a mass market
Move away from minimum attachment requirements
No harm to the network, not necessarily high QoS
Towards terminal standards which target the possibility of provision of high-level end-to-end QoS to the customer
Acceptance in the market based on other factors
Price
Other functions of terminals
Applications available for that terminal
Brand
End-to-end QoS - not in the first place
"kids prefer the pink phone!"
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11. Challenges for Network Operators and Service Providers
Huge investments in both infrastructure and access technology, likely to partially
Investing in new capacity, and
Rationing existing capacity
Traffic management tools
Increase efficiency of managing existing network capacity.
Appropriateness of different approaches to traffic management is at the heart of the Net Neutrality debate
Important to bear in mind that traffic management has always beneficial aspects
Commonly used to protect safety-critical traffic
Question is not whether traffic management is acceptable in principle, but whether particular approaches to traffic management cause concern
Network operators and service providers may or may not use traffic management as a welcome method towards suppressing competition
Opening access and core packet networks as pure bit pipes will probably not provide the envisaged revenues
Therefore network operators and service providers are aiming at providing services on top of the bit stream itself
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12. Challenges for Regulators and Administrations
Responsibility to consumer protection affected by rapid introduction of vendor-specific new services
Also required to set a right balance between service competition and infrastructure competition
In the early days of the move towards end-to-end services being no longer provided on a fixed, well-known platform, it still seemed to be fairly easy to require that the new technology provide QoS "not less than in the ISDN era"
Today it is easy to lose the overview of proprietary services "on-net" and the respectively offered QoS
Services are not standardized
For interconnection scenarios (one of the major responsibilities of the ITU, and one of the main purposes of the ITRs) one would need specific service agreements for each network-to-network-interface (NNI).
In contrast, Regulators and Administrations have seen in the recent past that the un-managed Internet has led to the creation of new services offered "over the top"
Important factor contributing to the economical benefits
Regulators and Administrations to have a close look
Conditions under which access to services in comparison to the access to the Internet is being provided
There may be a certain percentage of the bandwidth or of the capacity reserved for the on-net services which then are not available for the access to the Internet
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13. Challenges for Consumers
Personal affairs of using telecommunication services
Discrepancy between advertised and actual delivery speeds of the network
Consumers may not be able to detect the actual applications of discriminating traffic management techniques and find it difficult to distinguish between the effects of traffic management techniques on QoS from the effects of other quality degrading factors
A consumer observing that traffic is routinely throttled may not know whether this is done by intention, or is caused by other factors
Traffic management techniques and policies are difficult to understand for consumers
Consumers may find it difficult to act upon such information
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14. ... in Technical Terms
Dramatic increase in mobile communication, both in terms of the number of registered devices and of the volume of requested resources makes it is quite likely that migration scenarios and hybrid connections with existing wire-bound and traditional networks and terminals will be neglected and appropriate QoS standards will not be established or enforced
Main technical parameters to consider will be:
speed (data throughput) of the access network
congestion in the backbone
end-to-end delay (latency)
delay-variation (jitter)
packet loss (loss of information)
Jitter is the variation in delay between different packets
Compensation (by de-jitter buffers) converts jitter into additional delay
Packet loss may be concealed
Essential information may be lost
Bad terminal implementations may destroy reasonable performance delivered from the network(s)
Users will not be able to judge the difference in end-to-end QoS
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15. Current Policy Challenges
Need to consider new approaches to anchor national strategies or regulatory frameworks around the multi-facetted concept of QoS required
To set and keep the right balance between service and infrastructure competitions
To address the challenges associated with QoS on the telecommunication network
To continue providing adequate QoS, network operators and service providers claim to need a certain traffic management over increasingly congested networks
This might include data restrictions, traffic throttling, filtering and/or the use of data caps of thresholds
Once the cap is exceeded, customers or end-users may be, knowingly or not, confronted with the fact that, "Internet access" provided to them is no longer Internet access, but a service provided by their ISP;
Such possible circumstances have influenced debates over ‘net neutrality’ and ‘differentiated traffic management’
These issues are increasingly likely to come to the fore, if data traffic continues to grow at its current projected rate
Currently, many regulators are launching public consultations and investigations into traffic throttling practices
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16. Status of Net Neutrality Initiatives in selected Countries
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17. Current Policy Challenges
Best Practice Guidelines for Enabling Open Access from ITU’s Global Symposium for Regulators (GSR) in 2010
Recommend that only objectively justifiable differentiations be made in the way in which various data streams are treated
The Guidelines stress the importance of legislation to set out the general principles of open access: non-discrimination, effectiveness and transparency.
The European Commission (EC) policy on net neutrality published in April 2011, The Open Internet and Net Neutrality in Europe
calls for greater disclosure of traffic management practices
recognizes that traffic management is necessary to ensure the smooth flow of Internet traffic
One of the key policy questions regarding network neutrality regulation is
whether to ban optional business-to-business transactions between broadband ISPs and content providers or application providers for enhanced QoS in the delivery of “their” packets over the network
The discussions have significant economic and financial aspects
Affect who pays for what with respect to delivery of the network infrastructure and content.
This in turn affects how future infrastructure will be financed and rolled out.
Much of the traffic growth is coming from video
Some fixed-line operators have been seeking for a way to implement differentiated pricing in order to increase their revenues
In the European Union, discussions are taking place to one degree or another regarding the following:
The ability of consumers to address all legal content on the Internet.
Transparency, in the sense of clear information on services and prices.
Non-discrimination, in the sense of not prioritizing certain content or applications in harmful ways.
Traffic management, in the sense of intervening in the flow of traffic, for example to optimize bandwidth or to eliminate spam.
Differentiation, in the sense of allowing customers to choose service offers that differ with respect to characteristics such as price and speed.
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18. [Content] Current QoS Policy Challenges Introduction Global Challenges
ITRs: Setting the stage for a connected world
Current QoS Policy Challenges
Introduction
Global Challenges
The ITU’s past and current Work on QoS
International Agreements
Proposals for dealing with the matter
Summary
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19. The ITU’s past and current Work on QoS
The ITU has a long-standing history of QoS Work
Starting as early as 1957 the ITU has been conducting expert work in the fields of transmission planning, subjective testing and standards for telephone sets.
Since 1986 the Speech Quality Experts Group (SQEG) provided coordination of the quality requirements and subjective testing methodologies for speech coding algorithms
Since 1997 the Video Quality Experts Group (VQEG) provides coordination of the quality requirements and subjective testing methodologies for video coding algorithms
Today, in the ITU-T, Study Group 12 is the Lead Study Group on Performance, Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE)
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20. The ITU’s past and current Work on QoS
There are approximately 175 Recommendations, 7 Supplements and 3 Handbooks on QoS published by the ITU and in force.
Recently, a free download of ITU-T Test Signals for Telecommunication Systems was provided.
POLQA (Perceptual Objective Listening Quality Assessment) as per new Rec. ITU-T P.863 is the most sophisticated tool the ITU ever published for assessment of a QoS parameter "by objective means“. Listening Quality can be "measured" with excellent accuracy, e.g. during mobile network drive-by testing.
Rec. ITU-T Y.1541 (Network performance objectives for IP-based services) provides technical parameters for the differentiation of IP network traffic classes, encompassed by a huge number of appendices explaining application scenarios and background.
Rec. Y.1542 (Framework for achieving end-to-end IP performance objectives) considers various approaches toward achieving end-to-end (UNI‑UNI) IP network performance objectives.
The ITU GSR10 Best Practice Guidelines for Enabling Open Access have been developed (available at ).
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21. [Content] Current QoS Policy Challenges Introduction Global Challenges
ITRs: Setting the stage for a connected world
Current QoS Policy Challenges
Introduction
Global Challenges
The ITU’s past and current Work on QoS
International Agreements
Proposals for dealing with the matter
Summary
Maputo - Mozambique April 2014 21

22. Non-ITU International Agreements
No significant internationally binding agreements on end-to-end QoS outside the ITU
Specification work takes place in some industry fora
ETSI Technical Committee "Speech and multimedia Transmission Quality" (STQ)
Terminals and networks for speech and media quality
End-to-end single multimedia transmission performance
QoS parameters for networks and services
QoE descriptors and methods
Maputo - Mozambique April 2014

23. [Content] Current QoS Policy Challenges Introduction Global Challenges
ITRs: Setting the stage for a connected world
Current QoS Policy Challenges
Introduction
Global Challenges
The ITU’s past and current Work on QoS
International Agreements
Proposals for dealing with the matter
Summary
Maputo - Mozambique April 2014 23

24. Proposals for dealing with the Matter
Many proposals in recent years
Technical aspects of management of QoE
In various forums, including ETSI
Most of these items have been on the table in ITU-T Study Group 12
But no contributions from stakeholders
Work is contribution-driven
Questionable whether new standards will be established
Other kind of approach comes from regulators
Seeking balance between
the protection of the rights of consumers and
excessively rigid regulation
Ofcom in the UK have proposed "easy-to-understand" labelling
as illustrated on the next slides
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25. Elements for "easy-to-understand" labelling
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26. Illustrative QoE Summary for 3 hypothetical ISPs
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27. Illustrative transparent traffic management status representations
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28. Proposals from the Membership for dealing with the Matter
Interesting approach
Not a technical solution
Assumes standardized services
However will improve the QoE
User can realize that a sudden decrease in quality is caused by a contractual limit of the service rather than a technical deficiency
Maputo - Mozambique April 2014

29. [Content] Current QoS Policy Challenges Introduction Global Challenges
ITRs: Setting the stage for a connected world
Current QoS Policy Challenges
Introduction
Global Challenges
The ITU’s past and current Work on QoS
International Agreements
Proposals for dealing with the matter
Summary
Maputo - Mozambique April 2014 29

30. Summary
Move to packet-switched networks creates challenges and opportunities for all stakeholders
Network operators need to develop appropriate business models and QoS technologies
Policy makers and regulators need to consider the advantages and disadvantages
of a “hands-free” approach to differentiated QoS offers
versus imposing QoS levels
versus imposing no differentiation of traffic management
the so-called “network neutrality” paradigm
Consumers need to consider the tradeoffs between
undifferentiated “bit-pipe” offer and
more complex offers
including different priorities or bandwidths for different types of services
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31. Any questions ? Contact: Consultant@joachimpomy.de
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