Alcatel-Lucent 8920 SQM

Service Quality Manager For IPTV

2 | A L C A T E L . L U C E N T

Alcatel-Lucent 8920 SQM

Service Quality Manager For IPTVYour Challenge…

The cost of poor quality of experience (QoE) can be

enormous. QoE is critical because it is the primary driver

of customer loyalty — which is directly proportionate to

customer retention/churn.

Failing to deliver QoE that subscribers expect from the

IPTV service can lead to increased OPEX and lost

revenue. Lack of quality causes customer dissatisfaction,

which translates into increased customer complaints and

more truck rolls. If the IPTV quality is not good, there is

a higher chance that customers will churn. Not only will

the service provider lose IPTV revenue from the

customer, it may also lose voice and data revenue

altogether.

Because the only way to understand what makes a

customer unhappy about the services being delivered is

by actually measuring QoE, it is paramount that

operators have a continuous monitoring solution in place

from the moment they launch their IPTV services.

Investing in a service quality management solution means

having the all-important ability to understand and

manage the customer experience and win the customer’s

loyalty.

Our Answer…

Alcatel-Lucent 8920 Service Quality Manager (SQM)

provides powerful service quality management

capabilities based on best practices. It allows operators

to monitor video from the head end to the set top box

(STB) for the most accurate assessment of what

customers are really experiencing down to specific

regions, channels and other such dimensions.

Alcatel-Lucent 8920 SQM is a complete service quality

management solution, with the capability needed to:

> Manage real user quality of experience

> Detect problems before customers do

> Locate problems and perform root-cause analysis

> Gauge customer/value impact and prioritize trouble

resolution

> Support customer problem troubleshooting with user-

centric diagnostics

> Protect and optimise investments through proactive

capacity planning and trend analysis

> Gather audience measurement data for business and

operational intelligence/analysis

Key Benefits

> Optimize business outcomes by improving end users’ quality of experience

> Minimize revenue risk associated with customer churn due to unacceptable quality or performance problems

> Lower costs by reducing the number of level-1 calls from customers due to service quality degradation

> Greater cost-savings and efficiency through reduction in call-handling times, higher first-call resolution rates, and

elimination of truck rolls

> Reduce CAPEX through increased network and service platform utilization while leveraging existing infrastructure

investments

> Leverage current and future investments through easy integration into existing and evolving network environments

> Retain customer base and increase ARPU by delivering quality and quantity of video content based on accurate

identification of consumer preferences

End-to-End Service Quality Management

QoS performance monitoring information collected from the

network often does not accurately correlate with the

perceived QoE by users owing to error correction and

recovery mechanisms at the application layer. Also, aspects

such as application control plane latency (e.g., channel

change delay) and actual picture distortion may go

unnoticed in the network.

Therefore, to measure QoE requires the collection of

measurements from various sources to determine actual

service state and quality, as well as root causes of quality

degradation. Alcatel-Lucent 8920 SQM leverages active and

passive measurement techniques to provide a complete end-

to-end view of the quality and conditions throughout the

service delivery path:

a

> Subscriber activity and quality measured using a

combination of IPTV middleware, STB diagnostics and

probe-based measurements

> Video source and encoding analysis via MPEG2/4 analyzers

and video probes

> Diagnostics through integration of network performance

statistics from respective managers, test robot systems

and probes

> IT and network infrastructure availability from respective

managers (e.g., acquisition, distribution and VoD servers)

Available data may be sent to a wide range of Operations

Support Systems for seamless integration into existing

service assurance management systems, such as fault,

service fulfilment and customer problem troubleshooting.

A L C A T E L . L U C E N T | 3

SERVICE QUALITY MANAGEMENT FOR EVERY CUSTOMER, EVERY SERVICE, END-TO-END:

> From a single management location throughout the service delivery path

> Easily deployed and integrated into existing OSS environments

> Scalable and carrier-grade

4 | A L C A T E L . L U C E N T

Alcatel-Lucent 8920 SQM

Service Quality Manager For IPTVMaximizing IPTV Quality

Detect Problems before Customers Do

The application comes supplied, as standard, with

predefined thresholds or rules that encapsulate expert

operational knowledge and provide detection of typical

service degradation scenarios. These rules function by

comparing data to expected quality levels in order to

reveal degradation quickly and easily.

These predefined rules may be modified to suit differing

operational needs.

By pinpointing service degradation problems in real time,

our solution eliminates time-consuming manual analysis

ensuring corrective actions are taken well before

customers are affected.

Manage the True Customer Experience

Alcatel-Lucent 8920 SQM measures the viewing experience

for all subscribers via non-intrusive monitoring of the video

session quality. Measuring quality goes beyond simple

packet-based network metrics, such as packet loss and

jitter. In the 8920 it embraces the calculation of key quality

indicators such as channel change delays, audible and visible

quality degradations. It is these indicators that reflect more

concisely the perceived customer experience.

f

The unique Quality of Experience approach provides a true

understanding of the customer experience and the only way

to measure service levels from the customer’s perspective.

Powerful Diagnostics

Customers will have problems despite the best monitoring

efforts. In order to reduce truck rolls, diminish the number

of calls to customer service and minimize the duration of

service and support calls, it is necessary to deal with

diagnosis. Technical staff and customer service

representatives (CSRs) need to have access to detailed

service troubleshooting information and analysis needed to

assure quick problem resolution in the least time possible.

Alcatel-Lucent 8920 SQM provides a complete service quality

management solution with diagnostic functionality to

pinpoint the exact cause and location and offer tactics for

problem resolution. Impact analysis is done using real-time

correlation of resources, topologies and affected customers.

Such capability enables service providers to create trouble

tickets based on type of affected customers, rather than on

the type of degraded network resource. Additionally, the

predefined thresholds or rules can trigger the automatic

gathering of information that is needed to diagnose and

correct problems ranging from

Alcatel-Lucent 8920 SQM employs an advanced perceptual videoquality assessment model developed as a result of extensive Alcatelresearch and contributions to various standardization bodies.

Our assessment model* provides non-intrusive real-time ‘MTBF-like’ratings for user sessions by leveraging the capabilities of the IPTVinfrastructure. It uses session-based measurements taking intoaccount transport impairments all the way down to the STB.

This lightweight approach means cost-effective end-to-end and lastmile monitoring capabilities without investment in additionalhardware probes.

* Patent Pending

A L C A T E L . L U C E N T | 5

f

picture degradation to delivery of video-on-demand – all

without the need of a truck roll.

Customer service troubleshooting is fully integrated to

Alcatel-Lucent 8920 SQM enabling customer CSRs to uncover

and resolve customer issues without having to escalate the

trouble ticket. This integration with customer service

systems provides queries on accurate and up-to-date

customer troubleshooting information with personalized

diagnosis based on STB, network and session quality

conditions.

And as the network environment changes, Alcatel-Lucent

8920 SQM automatically updates the diagnostic information

through intelligent discovery. This information is

automatically retrieved from the service platforms, element

and inventory management systems and during the service

fulfilment process.

Proactive Capacity Planning

Alcatel-Lucent 8920 SQM provides comprehensive service

usage measurements and accurate trend analysis to help in

understanding the network and the traffic that it carries.

With this insight, the network may be optimized and

expanded to meet the needs of subscribers, redistribute

traffic load, downgrade link sizes or determine if network

segments will support new service deployments. If new

capacity is introduced in time, customers are more likely to

get the quality of service that was promised and end-

customers can be retained more easily.

Building a Better Customer Experience with Audience

Measurements

Quality and quantity of video content itself are also

important issues that drive consumer preferences, retain

customer base and increase ARPU. As telecom operators

become “entertainment providers”, they face the increasing

need to understand what the customer interests are and

offer value-added services that build on that interest to

generate more revenue.

f

To help meet this growing requirement, Alcatel-Lucent 8920

SQM gathers, stores and provides both detailed and

summarized viewing data that quantify the size and

composition of the IPTV market.

With deep insight on viewing habits, channel/program

audience and asset popularity, the marketing and product

management staff can measure service take-up, refine

service bundles, monitor promotions, drive better carriage

negotiations with content providers and charge favourable

ad fees for spot advertising on the local avails.

All audience data is extracted from the IPTV middleware in

an unobtrusive, light-touch manner. This means audience

measurements can be collected from a live network without

impacting other applications and without having to install

“people meter”-like probes in subscriber STB.

Business Intelligence for Integrated Reporting and Analysis

Alcatel-Lucent 8920 SQM employs the MicroStrategy Business

Intelligence solution to provide web-client drag-and-drop

simplicity and powerful analysis capabilities suitable for

both novice and advanced users.

A Multi-vendor and Multi-technology Solution

Alcatel-Lucent 8920 SQM is designed to easily accommodate

new services and multiple technologies from different

vendors. It supports wireless, fixed, full triple-play and

convergent fixed/wireless networks, including

GSM/GPRS/EDGE, DSL, TDM and VoIP/IMS networks.

Carrier-Class Scalability

Alcatel-Lucent 8920 SQM delivers service quality

management with the carrier-class scalability and flexibility

required for IPTV services and initiatives like OSS

consolidation and network convergence.

The application may collect and store virtually unlimited

amounts of service and customer data from any network

technology, service platform and OSS.

www.alcatel-lucent.com