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during the timeframe to certify a smooth
HD picture throughout the duration
Threat to QoE: Bandwidth Congestion
While employing strategies like this can
certainly help improve customer experiences,
the road to great QoE is paved with many
challenges. One of the most pressing issues
facing service providers today is bandwidth
congestion management. Major OTT content
providers are continuing to grow at an
unexpectedly rapid pace.
A recent report by the European
Audiovisual Observatory found that there are
now 3,000 on-demand services in the
European Union, a majority of which are VoD
related:
It’s reported that major OTT provider
Netflix expects to add over eight million new
subscribers to its European subscriber base by
the end of 2018. As OTT content provider
networks increase in popularity and extend to
new regions, the issue of bandwidth congestion
management has become a tall hurdle for
operators to cross — but all is not lost. With
smarter network data in their arsenal,
providers can utilise real-time analytics to
make better network growth predictions on
both a regional and per-subscriber basis. This
not only helps service providers certify high
QoE for their new and existing customers, it
also helps network planners make smarter
CAPEX investments.
Massive spikes in viewing are an additional
threat to QoE as operators move toward an allIP environment. Service providers have
recently entered a new market by offering live
streaming for major televised events, and it will
soon become common for millions of people
across the world to stream major sports
tournaments like the Olympic Games and the
FIFA World Cup. As these events are broadcast
to multiple screens, bandwidth utilisation
surges to surprising new levels. Previously,
service providers have scrambled to keep up
with the bandwidth requirements of millions of
people tuning in at one time, leaving many
customer dissatisfied with their service quality.
Now, by compiling and analysing real data
from previous live-stream attempts and
gaining a better understanding of subscriber
behaviours and regional network
requirements, operations teams can
strategically optimise specific network
infrastructure to meet the surge in bandwidth
brought on by these live streaming events. This
makes sure that users don’t have issues with
frame drops or pauses in their streams at
crucial moments during the event.
Threat to QoE: Multi-device Homes
Aside from the challenges surrounding
bandwidth, another wall standing in the way of
great QoE is an operator’s ability to extend
customer experience management to multiple
devices within the subscriber’s home. When
improving QoE, it’s crucial
to understand that device
optimisation, especially on
converged service networks
offering video, voice, and
Internet, must serve all
devices connected to a
gateway. Operators must be
able to offer high quality
multi-screen viewing to each
connected device — even
over WiFi.
Performing this
management starts with keyperformance indicators that
network operation teams use to get at-a-glance
views of service quality performance. If a
subscriber’s network connection isn’t at its
maximum speed, or an IPTV isn’t working the
way it should, an operator can actually know
about the problem and resolve it before the
subscriber is impacted. This practice puts
service providers in the fortunate position to be
more proactive with customer issues, reducing
the risk of angry customer support phone calls.
The cable television and broadband industries
have seen advancements in industry protocols
that allow customer service agents to access
specific parts of a network and user devices to
solve issues. Many of these problems used to
require in-home visits from service technicians,
but with remote management and increased
visibility, operators are increasing the speed at
which CPE issues can be fixed.
Changing Consumer Behaviours
This trend towards increasing visibility isn’t
just specific to operation teams either. One of
the most recent trends, which offers countless
benefits for improving customer QoE, is
enabling subscribers with configurable selfservice portals. As Internet penetration has
risen, computer literacy rates in major
European markets have proliferated to nearly
100%. Service providers are beginning to use
this increase in literacy as a dual advantage to
them and their customers: empowering
subscribers with more control over gateway
and network functions, and at the same time
reducing their own requirements for service
technicians.
Subscriber portals also provide a safe and
accurate environment for customers to monitor
their own connection speeds. Many times,
subscribers will use third party speedtest sites
to determine bandwidth upload and download
speeds, however, without considering the
entire home network — which may have
multiple devices using bandwidth at one time
— the numbers returned from the third party
sites can misrepresent actual bandwidth rates.
By providing subscriber portals with accurate
information, service providers can alleviate the
number of customer service phone calls for
performance issues. While it’s certainly not
realistic to expect operators to completely
eliminate customer support teams, providers
are realising the significant cost-savings and
QoE benefits that can be gained from
subscriber empowerment.
Service providers are becoming
increasingly agile with their package options,
offering skinny bundles for select TV channels,
OTT content distributors, or any combination
of the two. This flexibility is certain to