Huawei releases white paper to present a new IPTV Index System

[Shenzhen, China, September 27, 2017] Huawei has released a white paper that presents a new IPTV Index System. This white paper refers to relevant index systems that have been defined by standardization organizations, and establishes the relationship between indexes of different levels, to form a measurable IPTV index system driven by experience. With the IPTV index system, operators can achieve video experience visibility, manageability and optimization based on the measurement methodology defined.

With the development of video services, telecom operators are beginning to focus on how to guarantee video user experience and how to efficiently support daily operation and maintenance. Operators require an index system to measure the video experience and guide daily operations. Different measurement index systems for specific network levels have been defined by various industry standardization organizations, but most of those are limited to a single level. In the fixed video service context, there is currently no unified standard system that can establish the relationship between different levels, for example, between users’ experience and service KQI/KPI and the relationship between KPIs in different network layers.

The fixed video index system in this white paper is divided into three levels: the user experience level (QoE), the service quality level (KQI) and the network performance level (KPI). The user experience level consists of the viewing experience related indexes, which are normally fitted values calculated by index modelling, like vMOS and U-vMOS. The service quality KQI level covers major indexes measuring IPTV and OTT service quality, combining both objective indexes like MDI, media streaming download rate and EPG response time, as well as subjective indexes like the Initial Buffer Time.

The network performance level consists of end to end network and device indexes and is defined to measure the network capability to support video services, and achieve analysis, monitoring, diagnosis, fault location and optimization. The network KPI indexes are usually objective and original, which can be directly collected from network elements, like port optical power and bandwidth utilization.

For indexes relationship between different levels, the white paper mainly analyzes the relationship between KQI or between KPI and KPI. For some typical network environments, the white paper has verified conclusions in the lab, measuring the service quality through subjective experience and objective monitoring, and verified the influence of network capability and performance on the video service.

For the application scenarios, the white paper amply analyzes how to generate fitted indexes to evaluate service experience from the original indexes with some subjective factors. It also introduces the threshold values, the statistical methods and how to structure the indexes of individual sessions, individual users and individual network elements to form examining-oriented and customizable operation indexes, like VAP, Stalling Duration Rate and so on, given the method and suggestion of indicators acquisition and modeling.

By this way, it can help operators to have a better understanding of precise video users experience in each region, efficiently analyze the VAP, establish and optimize the standards of network construction and operation. The white paper introduces the application scenarios from three aspects: experience visualization (region ranking of VAP ratio), experience management (effective fault location and network promotion) and video network capability measurement.

The whitepaper can be downloaded from this link: [PDF,1.77MB](http://carrier.huawei.com/~/media/CNBG/Downloads/Solutions/cloud-enabled-digital-operations/IPTV Index System White Paper 01-en.pdf)