Quality Differentiation

Kalevi Kilkki
Nokia Research Center

1 © NOKIA 2001 Quality Differentiation / 11.01.01/ KK

 Issues to be considered

• What is quality and why should it be differentiated

• Two perspectives
• applications and their requirements
• business

2 © NOKIA 2001 Quality Differentiation / 11.01.01/ KK

 QoS
• Traditionally (that is, 15 years, which is a very long time for Internet)
QoS has referred to a model in which
• each user request service with definite QoS parameters, and
• the service provider makes appropriate arrangements in a way that
exactly those QoS requirements are met
• Great, isn't it?

• Unfortunately, this approach is totally against the original

principle of the Internet
• equal treatment of all packets independent of application's requirements

• How on earth can we combine Internet and QoS?

3 © NOKIA 2001 Quality Differentiation / 11.01.01/ KK

 Back to Basics
• What is the objective of ISP (Internet Service Provider)
related to QoS?

• Simply, more profitable business

• not technical brilliance, I think

• The key question is

• What is the point of QoS from business perspective?

4 © NOKIA 2001 Quality Differentiation / 11.01.01/ KK

 An example
• What should we do in the following case?
• Application A requires that packet loss ratio is smaller than 10-6,
while application B can endure much higher packet loss ratio, 10-2
• All other things are equal (bit rates, prices etc.)

• Approach
• if the packet loss ratio remains between 10-6 and 10-2,
application A shall be favoured
• otherwise it is quite the same what the operator does
• but it is almost impossible to implement this in practice
• it needs excessive signalling and real-time traffic control because only
end-to-end quality of each flow matters, not local aggregate conditions

5 © NOKIA 2001 Quality Differentiation / 11.01.01/ KK

 Implementable QoS in the Internet

• Packet level prioritization

• either application A or B is systematically favoured over the other one
• if A is favoured, packets belonging to application B are discarded during
congestion situation
• A = more demanding application (Ploss < 10-6)
• B = less demanding application (Ploss < 10-2)
• because in a packet network, the main decision to be done is to select
which packets are transmitted and which packets shall be discarded
• Which one is better approach from operator perspective
• A is favoured over B, or
• B is favoured over A ?
Any opinions?

6 © NOKIA 2001 Quality Differentiation / 11.01.01/ KK

 A brief analysis of QoS
• We may try to approach the question by modelling
• … just the main results

• Two objectives ...

• short-term: to keep users as satisfied as possible in a given situation
(demand, resources)
• long-term: to use the resources as efficiently as possible in order to
maximise the total revenue (including the changes in user behaviour)
• ... two conclusions
• short-term: difference in average satisfaction typically 5%
• long-term: difference in total revenue typically 2%
• by favouring either more or less demanding applications

7 © NOKIA 2001 Quality Differentiation / 11.01.01/ KK

 Short-term vs. long-term
• Short-term gain is achieved by favouring
more demanding applications
• Long-term gain is achieved by favouring
less demanding applications

• Short-term: it is better to favour more demanding applications

because more users will be satisfied
• if both application types are present at the same time
• Long-term: it is better to favour less demanding applications
because the number of flows that can be served is larger
if quality requirements are lower
• if we suppose that users are able to learn and change their behaviour,
for instance, to change the application they are using

8 © NOKIA 2001 Quality Differentiation / 11.01.01/ KK

 Two conclusions

•1•
Even a very reasonable short-term goal
- to keep as many customers as possible satisfied -
does not necessarily serve the long-term goal
- to make profitable business -

•2•
Achievable gain from QoS actions is small
- usually clearly less than 10% -

9 © NOKIA 2001 Quality Differentiation / 11.01.01/ KK

 The meaning of QoS?

• Is the whole QoS effort useless?

• No!
• because there is something else to be considered

• What is this something else? Any idea?

10 © NOKIA 2001 Quality Differentiation / 11.01.01/ KK

 Traditional way of thinking
• The users of more demanding applications are paying more,
because they shall pay more, and because they pay more,
they shall obtain better service, or higher QoS!
• Does this make sense?
• perhaps partly ...

• Now we approach the essence of the whole QoS issue

• " because they pay more, they shall obtain better service"

11 © NOKIA 2001 Quality Differentiation / 11.01.01/ KK

 Pay more - get better service

• But then, where is the direct link between QoS requirement

and the service offered to the customer?
• apparently nowhere
• for given price paid by the customer, QoS requirements lose most of
their significance from ISP perspective
• If someone is paying more than another one, it is not the
service provider's business to know anything about the
applications used by the customers
• once again, the achievable gain is so small that in most cases it is not
worth of any significant effort
• delay or real-time service might be an exception

12 © NOKIA 2001 Quality Differentiation / 11.01.01/ KK

 A counter argument
• Still someone may argue that
• customers are dissatisfied because they do not know in advance
whether the actual quality of service will be sufficient for their application

• Is user's QoS expectation an important factor as such

- in addition to price?
• If the service provider has created high expectations about the
QoS for some customers
• it seems reasonable (in short term) to favour those customers,
independent of the price they have paid
• but in the long term it probably is better to favour those customers that
are paying more, mostly independent of their quality expectations

13 © NOKIA 2001 Quality Differentiation / 11.01.01/ KK

 Another example
• Video customers
• are paying 2 € for receiving a 2 hour video by 500 kbit/s
• have high expectations about quality (Ploss < 10-6 for the whole video)
• What if service provider might lose 800 phone calls (Ploss < 10-2)
• 1 * 500 kbit/s * 120 min = 800 * 25 kbit/s * 3 min (= 450 Mbytes)
• If each phone call is worth of 0.25 € , then the matter is about
• 2 € vs. 200 €
• The service provider should not endanger the voice business
• even though video customers may change their operator,
in the long run it is better to favour those customers that
generate the highest revenue per used resource

14 © NOKIA 2001 Quality Differentiation / 11.01.01/ KK

 Quality differentiation
- a recommendation
• Provide better quality for those customers that are paying more
per quantity
• but do not bother to ask what are the applications customers are using
and what are the quality requirements of those applications
• If some customers are paying equally per quantity,
try to provide as equal service as possible

• quality = (mainly) packet loss ratio

• quantity = (mainly) bit rate
• real-time service can be requested separately
• if better delay characteristics consume extra resources, it means an
addition to the amount of resources used by the flow

15 © NOKIA 2001 Quality Differentiation / 11.01.01/ KK

 Conclusion

• The key question is

What is the point of QoS from business perspective?

• The answer is

ISP shall provide better quality for those customers

that are paying more per used resources

16 © NOKIA 2001 Quality Differentiation / 11.01.01/ KK