Improving the VoLTE Experience:

Best Practices from Early Launches

An Infonetics Research Webinar
Co-produced with Spirent Communications

#VoLTE The Webinar Will Begin Shortly

Improving the VoLTE Experience:
Best Practices from Early Launches
An Infonetics Research Webinar
Co-produced with Spirent Communications

#VoLTE
Today’s Speakers #VoLTE

Stéphane Téral Rich McNally

Principal Analyst, Director
Mobile Infrastructure and Service Experience Programs
Carrier Economics Spirent Communications
Infonetics Research

JoAnne Emery Eric Sinclair

Event Director Manager
Infonetics Research Service Experience Programs

(Moderator) Spirent Communications

3
Agenda #VoLTE

Market Trends 1
Challenges 2
Best Practices 3
Case Studies 4
Sponsor Background 3
5
Conclusions 6
4
Audience Q&A 7
4
Mobile Broadband Rules but Voice Stays
$1,000
‣ Global mobile revenue forecast:
$800
• US$815.8 billion by year end (+2%
Revenue (US$ Billions)

over last year)

$600
• US$852.5 billion in 2017

$400 ‣ Broadband is the next growth

engine, surpassing SMS/MMS
revenue this year
$200

• We forecast US$290 billion in 2018,

up 75% from 2013
$0
CY12 CY13 CY14 CY15 CY16 CY17 CY18
‣ Voice will still account for >48% of
Voice SMS/MMS Broadband
total mobile service revenue in 2018

© Infonetics Research: 2G, 3G, LTE Mobile Services and Subscribers Market Size and Forecasts, June 2014 5
Although OTT Dominates mVoIP…
3,500
‣ 1.5 billion active users
worldwide of OTT mVoIP 3,000
in 2013…

Subscribers (Millions)
2,500
• Mobile operators using OTT for
subscribers travelling out 2,000
of country
1,500
• Activity continues to expand in
Japan, China, and South Korea 1,000

‣ …that will taper as users 500

whittle choices down and

0
over-penetration settles out CY11 CY12 CY13 CY14 CY15 CY16 CY17 CY18
OTT mVoIP VoLTE
‣ Proliferation of smartphones
fueling growth

• We expect OTT mVoIP subscribers to more than double from 2013 to 2018, to 3.1 billion

Infonetics Research: 2G, 3G, LTE Mobile Services and Subscribers Market Size and Forecasts, June 2014 6
…the Revenue Model Remains Challenging
$20
‣ In 2013, 1.5 billion mVoIP OTT
subscribers contributed

Revenue (US$ Billions)

$10 billion in revenue $15

• Successful providers are using

the app as a platform to upsell $10

• Revenue declines as users

eliminate multiple OTT apps
$5

‣ VoLTE is starting to have an

impact but values are small; only
$0
12 operators have commercial CY11 CY12 CY13 CY14 CY15 CY16 CY17 CY18
service so far
OTT mVoIP Native mVoIP

‣ We forecast combined native and OTT

mobile VoIP to grow to $24.7 billion in 2018

• Based on 3.4 billion mVoIP subscribers, 90% of which are OTT

© Infonetics Research: 2G, 3G, LTE Mobile Services and Subscribers Market Size and Forecasts, June 2014 7
VoLTE Taking Off, Marketed as HD Voice…
Cumulative W-AMR HD Voice Networks
140
‣ 119 mobile operators offer HD
voice with W-AMR* as key 120
HD voice enabler
100
• 95 on HSPA
80
• 12 on LTE
(VoLTE + IR.94 video calling) 60

• 8 on GSM/HSPA
40
• 2 on HSPA/LTE
20
• 2 on GSM
0
‣ 92 smartphones (including 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
carrier and frequency variants) HSPA commercial VoLTE commercial

support VoLTE Source: GSA, September 23, 2014

• Including products by Asus, Huawei, LG, Pantech, Samsung, and Sony Mobile
• The new Apple iPhone 6 & 6 Plus models support VoLTE

*W-AMR: Wideband Adaptive Multi-Rate codec 8

…and SK Telecom Fuels the Momentum
VoLTE Market Opportunity
$8 350

300
$6
Revenue (US$ Billions)

Subscribers (Millions)
250

200
$4
150

100
$2
50

$0 0
CY12 CY13 CY14 CY15 CY16 CY17 CY18

‣ 20 commercial VoLTE networks and 51 million VoLTE subscribers this year

‣ Worldwide revenue of $1.2 billion at the current voice ARPU
• In spite of SK Telecom’s VoLTE adoption (8M+ subscribers in May 2014)…
• …no evidence VoLTE is increasing ARPU (despite SKT charging a premium!)

‣ By 2018 we expect ~325 million VoLTE subscribers and $7 billion in revenue

© Infonetics Research: 2G, 3G, LTE Mobile Services and Subscribers Market Size and Forecasts, June 2014 9
The Feedback Is Extremely Positive so Far

‣ Connection is super fast, ringtone sound quality exceptional

‣ Virtually no background noise; voice is crystal clear

‣ Video call quality is crisp and sound

• Superior to Skype and other OTT apps

The ultimate goal is to keep every subscriber on your network

with the carrier-grade service features that beat OTTs

10
There Is Little Surprise!

‣ VoLTE is reliable
• Offers guaranteed QoS

‣ VoLTE provides high quality

• Uses W-AMR codecs
(12.65kbps or 23.85kpbs)
and QoS Class Identifier
(QCI) SIP signaling

‣ VoLTE is spectrally efficient Source: Nokia Networks, 2012

• Due to LTE’s all-IP architecture and new features in 3GPP releases —

such as MIMO antenna technology — voice requires less bandwidth in
LTE spectrum than it does in 2G/3G networks

11
Agenda #VoLTE

Market Trends 1
Challenges 2
Best Practices 3
Case Studies 4
Sponsor Background 3
5
Conclusions 6
4
Audience Q&A 7
12
The Experience Matters

‣ VoLTE needs to deliver a better user

experience than OTT and legacy services
• There is only one way to truly know if new devices
and services are ready to launch
• You need to measure the experience at the
device, using actual consumer devices

‣ Spirent has been in the trenches, rolling out

VoLTE with leading operators for 2 years
• Following are some best practices for evaluating
and improving VoLTE…
• …to ensure a successful launch of new devices
and services

14
Agenda #VoLTE

Market Trends 1
Challenges 2
Best Practices 3
Case Studies 4
Sponsor Background 3
5
Conclusions 6
4
Audience Q&A 7
15
Practice #1: Measure What Matters

‣ Our experience:
VoLTE UX Metrics
• Functional testing is increasingly insufficient for
assuring user experience MOS (wideband
mobile-to-mobile and
• Combined live network and lab evaluation of user narrowband landline)
experience (UX) is a better approach Mobile Originated and
• If you don’t measure everything that matters to Terminated Block/Drop
users, problems will emerge Rates
Conversational Audio
‣ Best practices: Delay
• Focus on objective assessment of what the Video Delivery
user experiences
Audio / Video Sync
• Measure all key factors impacting user experience
Battery Life
• Measure quality and consistency

16
Practice #2: Stress the Device Like a User

‣ Our experience: Dropped Call Rate by

Device Manufacturer
• Measurements of UX are only valid if they Voice Only Vs. Multi-Service
reflect real user behavior
1.9%
• Multi-service voice and data usage
stresses the device
1.4%
• Dropped calls and other UX elements are 1.3%
impacted by multi-service usage
‣ Best practices:
• Implement multi-service use cases for 1.1% 1.1%
pre-launch device evaluation 0.9%

• For example, set up continuous push

emails during test calls Manufacturer 1 Manufacturer 2 Manufacturer 3

Voice only Multi-service

17
Practice #3: Rank Devices (and Services)

‣ Our experience: Speech Quality

Downlink Uplink
• There is a wide variance in UX across
device models
Device A Device D
Device B
• It’s a competitive marketplace - showing Device B

rank by UX category is a powerful motivator

Device A

‣ Best practices: Device C

• Consider the relative performance of Device C

Device D Device E
devices and not just the absolute
• Rank and compare all pre-launch devices Device E

by UX category
• Set thresholds based on population
performance (and raise over time) No one wants to be in this range

18
Practice #4: Assess from the Top Down
‣ Our experience: Isolating the Root Causes of
Poor VoLTE Speech Quality
• You can spend a lot of time and money 5

gathering stack-loads of data you don’t use

Downlink MOS
4

• Broad statistical assessments with focused 2

drilldown into problems saves time 1

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800
• RTP and RF tracing can provide key insight into
root causes of poor experience
RTP Metrics Help Identify Cell-Specific Issue
‣ Best practices: 60 HO HO
50
• Only collect RTP/IP and RF DM logs at UE
40

Packets/s
(and IMS) where problems are identified or in
30
focused pre-planned instances
20

• Use the data to accelerate triage/isolation of 10

UX issues to network/device/service 0
200 300 400 500 600
Received Packets/s Missing Packets/s

19
Agenda #VoLTE

Market Trends 1
Challenges 2
Best Practices 3
Case Studies 4
Sponsor Background 3
5
Conclusions 6
4
Audience Q&A 7
20
Case Study: VoLTE Speech Quality
VoLTE MOS (POLQA) by RF Environment
‣ Drive test of live US VoLTE
3.55 3.53
network with varying RF 3.53 3.48 3.46 3.52

‣ MOS very flat across good, fair Device 1

Device 2
and poor RF environments
• Average speech quality mean
Good Fair Poor
opinion score (MOS) of 3.5
• In very poor RF conditions, MOS Average RTP Jitter (ms) by RSRP (dBm)
tends to degrade rapidly
22.1

‣ RTP jitter and delay also flat 17.2 16.8 16.2 16.6 16.2 15.9

across varying RF conditions

• In very poor RF, RTP performance
drops off rapidly -105 -100 -95 -90 -85 -80 -75

21
Case Study: Typical Causes of Poor MOS
‣ Week-long drive test of VoLTE in
Other
major US city 5%

‣ RF issues are most common and

IP
fairly easy to detect 16%
• Distant or no dominant server
• Interference / weak server
• Dragging handover
‣ IP (RTP) issues also common RF
79%
• Configuration / IP connectivity
‣ Other issues
Root cause of VoLTE MOS < 2.5 by category
• No apparent RF or IP issues for week long drive test of major US city

• Device issue related to buffering,

packet re-assembly or codec

22
Case Study: Isolating Root Causes
VoLTE Analytics Scorecard
‣ Are problems due to: Overall Rank Device 1 Device 2
device, network, or interaction? User Experience

‣ Comparative scorecards help Speech Quality

identify the source of issues Network – RF Conditions

Received Power (RSRP)

‣ Scorecard on right comes from Signal Quality (RSRQ)
tests on a live VoLTE network
Interference (CINR)
• Network RF conditions are good Device-Network Interaction

Resource Allocation
• Device 2 is less efficient at using
air-interface resources, but… Modulation Efficiency

RTP – Packet Jitter

• RTP performance is okay
RTP – Packet Delay
• Ideal MOS from RTP stream shows RTP – Packet Loss
speech quality should be good
Device Buffering and Decoding

• Device 2 jitter buffer or codec is Ideal MOS from RTP

not working properly! Actual - Ideal MOS

23
Case Study: Isolating Root Causes

‣ Used RTP analysis to isolate issue One location: VoLTE MOS < 2.5 with
good RF but packet loss rate > 9%!
with service infrastructure / IP layer
RF RSRP
‣ Collected IP sniffer data via device and -86.3
server-side logs in area with low MOS -98.7

• RF is good
• RTP jitter and delay is okay
• RTP packet loss rate very high Serving Cell Neighbor Cell

‣ Diagnosis RSRQ: -12.3

CINR: 4.6
• The network is working and packets are
getting through but… RTP RTP Jitter: 14 ms
• There is a major IP connectivity issue RTP Delay: 20 ms
leading to dropped packets RTP PLR: 9.3%

24
Case Study: Making Improvements
VoLTE vs. OTT and CS Speech Quality (HD Codec)
Optimization 3.8
‣ Results from live network testing improvement 3.6
OTT 1

3.3
of VoLTE and IR.94 video VoLTE (Pre-
optimization)
3.0
Circuit-Switched
‣ Key factors that matter to users: 2.4 VoLTE (Optimized)

• Speech quality (MOS) OTT 2

Speech Quality (POLQA MOS)
• Frozen or impaired frame rate

‣ Prior to optimization, VoLTE Frozen/Impaired Frames for IR.94 Video vs. OTT
performs poorly Optimization
improvement 25.3% IR.94 (Optimized)
‣ After optimization VoLTE is 1st 19.5%
OTT 2
or 2nd best in all UX categories 13.2%
OTT 1

3.4% IR.94 (Pre-

optimization)

Frozen/Impaired Frames

25
Agenda #VoLTE

Market Trends 1
Challenges 2
Best Practices 3
Case Studies 4
Sponsor Background 3
5
Conclusions 6
4
Audience Q&A 7
26
Improving User Experience
Partnering with service providers and device manufacturers to
improve the user experience of devices and services

Effect of Fit4Launch on Portfolio Speech Fit4Launch programs for

Quality over first 2 years evaluating user experience
of pre-launch devices are
deployed at 3 US operators

Over 2 years F4L program

led to decreased variance
between devices, more
consistent speech quality

F4L program also led to

better average speech
quality across portfolio

27
Inventing Systems and Methods
Inventing systems and methodologies for measuring and analyzing
the user experience of mobile devices and services

Voice & Video

Calling

File Transfer &

Speech Web Browsing Location Call Video Battery Life Live Lab

2003 2008 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

Spirent User Experience Analytics timeline

28
Agenda #VoLTE

Market Trends 1
Challenges 2
Best Practices 3
Case Studies 4
Sponsor Background 3
5
Conclusions 6
4
Audience Q&A 7
29
The VoLTE Advantage

‣ With the RF in order, beat the OTT with voice and video calling
over LTE!
• Video calling over LTE is very challenging because it requires low
latency, low error rate and high bit rate

• With the GSMA toolbox, IR.92 and IR.94, when the LTE network is
congested, VoLTE and video calling services can use LTE QoS
features to prioritize packets to ensure service quality
- Pure OTT can’t

‣ With 71 operators currently investing in VoLTE studies, trials or

deployments, it’s only a matter of time for mobile operators to
retake their destiny

30
Agenda #VoLTE

Market Trends 1
Challenges 2
Best Practices 3
Case Studies 4
Sponsor Background 3
5
Conclusions 6
4
Audience Q&A 7
31
Audience Q&A #VoLTE

Stéphane Téral Rich McNally

Principal Analyst, Director
Mobile Infrastructure and Service Experience Programs
Carrier Economics Rich.McNally@spirent.com
stephane@infonetics.com Spirent Communications
Infonetics Research

JoAnne Emery Eric Sinclair

Event Director Manager
joanne@infonetics.com Service Experience Programs
Infonetics Research Eric.Sinclair@spirent.com
(Moderator) Spirent Communications

32
 #VoLTE

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