Articles

First Priority: Quality of Experience

With the abundance of smartphones and high-end connected devices, attractive applications and high speed data networks, network congestion has become today the most pressing issue for mobile operators around the world. The primary affect congestion has is on user quality of experience (QoE).

Experience in this field shows that most subscribers are quick to notice when “bad” things happen, meaning when they experience visible performance degradation. As a result, effective congestion control must begin with real-time detection of the de-facto user experience, handling the subscribers who experience such conditions.

Detecting Congestion and Taking Action

In light of this reality, the Comverse Congestion Control solution spotlights QoE as the main indicator for network congestion. This enables communication service providers (CSPs) to dynamically and effectively relieve stress situations in a targeted and localized manner – stretching peak performance while avoiding unnecessary network expansions.

Comverse’s Congestion Control is a holistic solution comprised of two main components:

• Congestion Detection: Real-time detection of stress situations / visible performance degradation at a user level
  
• Congestion Mitigation: A set of targeted actions applied only upon stress detection, aimed at ensuring best quality of experience during all times. Actions are based on comprehensive policy logic also defined as part of the solution.

Detection Precision: Pin-Point Accuracy

A good congestion detection mechanism must enable simple, accurate and immediate (real-time) detection of stress situations. Comverse Congestion Control solution does exactly that by processing in real time a variety of traffic-related parameters and accurately identifying the subscribers who experience QoE degradation.

As opposed to other congestion detection mechanisms (e.g.: cell-based), which require complex integration between multiple systems or unnecessarily take actions on all subscribers within a given cell, Comverse solution assures maximum accuracy (handling only ‘stressed’ users) with minimum related costs (ensuring that targeted action will be used only in relevant cases).

At the same time, the Comverse Congestion Control solution can receive cell-based information as well as additional inputs, processing them all in a holistic manner.

Congestion Mitigation: Broad Scope of Targeted Action

Real-time and accurate detection by itself is not sufficient. Upon detecting visible performance degradation, the Congestion Control solution immediately implements the optimal targeted action to alleviate the traffic congestion of the affected users and restore the high quality data experience.

The following actions are performed:

• Video Optimization: Enables effective handling of video traffic, using different optimization techniques
  
• Traffic Shaping and Prioritization: DPI-based approach that allows operators to reduce the bandwidth of a given application/ user or to change its priority
  
• Wi-Fi Offload: Enables automatic and seamless offload to Wi-Fi networks once stress is detected, using a well known Wi-Fi partner

Unlike many other congestion-related solutions that apply corrective actions to all or to a large portion of the data subscribers, Comverse’s Congestion Control solution affects only “stressed” users, enabling operators to significantly reduce the high CAPEX-related investments associated with deploying such throughput-intensive solutions.

By enabling operators to avoid applying corrective measures to users who are not experiencing stress, the Comverse solution prevents unnecessary QoE degradation.

Comprehensive Congestion Control Policy Framework

Comverse’s Congestion Control solution includes a comprehensive congestion control policy framework that enables CSPs to dynamically implement different actions and/or different levels of a certain action based on multiple network and subscriber parameters (e.g.: stress level, application type, traffic/device type, time of day, subscriber data plan, etc.).

This policy framework can be deployed as a standalone Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF), or operate under the operator’s existing PCRF solution using standard PCC interfaces.

Surgical Precision: Benefits

In today’s world, we enjoy a high quality of life that has been enhanced by early diagnosis of ailments coupled with immediate remedial action. Advanced medical instruments make possible the optimal corrective treatment with surgical precision.

Similarly, CSPs seeking to ensure a superior quality of experience for their mobile broadband customers no longer have to resort to blunt, costly and imprecise corrective measures that unnecessarily affect large blocs of users.

Comverse’s Congestion Control solution ushers in a new era of accuracy that benefits CSPs in important ways. The light resource consumption of the solution contributes to its cost effectiveness and attractive ROI. The solution’s efficiency and reliability are heightened by the fact that it does not affect users who are not suffering from the effects of data congestion, and the solution can successfully avoid the complexities created by other solutions such as cell-
based.

This paves the way for CSPs to make the most of the mobile broadband opportunity – increasing network capacity while guarantying high quality of experience for their entire subscriber base.