[Eli Cohen is our expert when it comes to VoIP and testing. Since we’re doing a webinar on VoLTE and testing, it just made sense for him to write a few lines for our readers here]
As the need for VoLTE is growing dramatically around the world, developers are spurred to bring implementations to the market rapidly. As a result, standards are not always adhered to and chipset vendors have to endure end user experiences that leave much to be desired in terms of quality. There are heavy investments being made in developing VoLTE handsets. Unlike the global Internet, IMS/LTE networks contain additional embedded control functions geared to provide resource control, security, and QoS on the network. Providing a high level of quality to end users is of critical importance to the new VoLTE service. It is essential for service providers to maintain high quality and to ensure end user satisfaction.
When preparing new real-time voice and video over LTE, service providers must assess whether their network can provide and maintain the expected quality of service (QoS). Service provider administrators must make informed decisions regarding which network devices to deploy, the amount of bandwidth needed, and the optimal network configuration required to support voice and video over LTE technologies and to detect faults that may affect its usage. A proactive approach is needed to ensure VoLTE readiness before deployment on the network, as the success of these services depends on the ability of the network to support them.
End user-experience testing plays a critical and vital role in product development and quality assurance cycles, thereby helping equipment vendors to develop high-end VoLTE services.
What makes VoLTE testing complex and challenging? It is the fact that there are so many parameters to take into consideration, such as audio and video measurements, video telephony including motion level, codecs, IMS/LTE test case simulation with different scenarios that emulate the network the UE and the IMS core part, QoS, and interoperability test cases.
For LTE handset vendors it is important to have a feature testing system for IMS UE applications and IMS servers capable of simulating signaling and media, including end user experience and call features testing.
For IMS core vendors it is important to perform capacity testing, which typically refers to performance metrics and the simulation of thousands of handsets.
Providing a high level of quality can present a considerable challenge. It is vitally important to be able to quickly and reliably pinpoint and resolve quality-related problems as they occur. These issues are exactly at the heart of an upcoming free webinar we’re doing on “Ensuring VoLTE Conformance and User Experience” be sure to register to learn more about VoLTE testing.
