Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Quality assessment and usage behavior of a mobile voice-over-IP service

  • Published:
Telecommunication Systems Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Voice-over-IP (VoIP) services offer users a cheap alternative to the traditional mobile operators to make voice calls. Due to the increased capabilities and connectivity of mobile devices, these VoIP services are becoming increasingly popular on the mobile platform. Understanding the user’s usage behavior and quality assessment of the VoIP service plays a key role in optimizing the Quality of Experience (QoE) and making the service to succeed or to fail. By analyzing the usage and quality assessments of a commercial VoIP service, this paper identifies device characteristics, context parameters, and user aspects that influence the usage behavior and experience during VoIP calls. Whereas multimedia services are traditionally evaluated by monitoring usage and quality for a limited number of test subjects and during a limited evaluation period, this study analyzes the service usage and quality assessments of more than thousand users over a period of 120 days. This allows to analyze evolutions in the usage behavior and perceived quality over time, which has not been done up to now for a widely-used, mobile, multimedia service. The results show a significant evolution over time of the number of calls, the call duration, and the quality assessment. The time of the call, the used network, and handovers during the call showed to have a significant influence on the users’ quality assessments.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
Fig. 13
Fig. 14
Fig. 15

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. http://www.skype.com

  2. http://www.oovoo.com

  3. http://www.google.com/hangouts

  4. http://www.vikingtalk.com

  5. http://www.mobilevikings.com

References

  1. About.com (2013). What Affects Voice Quality in VoIP Calls (2013). Retrieved July 5, 2013, from http://voip.about.com/od/voipbasics/a/factorsquality.htm

  2. Agboma, F., & Liotta, A. (2012). Quality of experience management in mobile content delivery systems. Telecommunication Systems, 49(1), 85–98. doi:10.1007/s11235-010-9355-6.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Alvarez-Flores, E., Ramos-Munoz, J., Ameigeiras, P., & Lopez-Soler, J. (2011). Selective packet dropping for voip and tcp flows. Telecommunication Systems, 46(1), 1–16. doi:10.1007/s11235-009-9252-z.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Benaissa, M., Lecuire, V., Lepage, F., & Schaff, A. (2005). Efficient de-jitter control for voice applications over wireless ad hoc networks. Telecommunication Systems, 28(2), 211–230. doi:10.1007/s11235-004-5017-x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Business Advisory Support (2013). The Growing Popularity of Hosted VoIP. Retrieved July 5, 2013, from http://www.advisorysupport.co.uk/the-growing-popularity-of-hosted-voip/

  6. Cano, M. D., & Cerdan, F. (2012). Subjective QoE analysis of voip applications in a wireless campus environment. Telecommunication Systems, 49(1), 5–15. doi:10.1007/s11235-010-9348-5.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Cardeal, S., Neves, F., Soares, S., Tavares, F., & Assuncao, P. (2011). Arqos : \({\textregistered } \)System to monitor qos/qoe in voip. In: Proceedings of the EUROCON—International Conference on Computer as a Tool (EUROCON), 2011, pp. 1–2. IEEE. doi:10.1109/EUROCON.2011.5929310.

  8. Ciszkowski, T., Mazurczyk, W., Kotulski, Z., Hofeld, T., Fiedler, M., & Collange, D. (2012). Towards quality of experience-based reputation models for future web service provisioning. Telecommunication Systems, 51(4), 283–295. doi:10.1007/s11235-011-9435-2.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. De Pessemier, T., De Moor, K., Joseph, W., De Marez, L., & Martens, L. (2012). Quantifying subjective quality evaluations for mobile video watching in a semi-living lab context. IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting, 58(4), 580–589. doi:10.1109/TBC.2012.2199590.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. De Pessemier, T., De Moor, K., Joseph, W., De Marez, L., & Martens, L. (2013). Quantifying the influence of rebuffering interruptions on the user’s quality of experience during mobile video watching. IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting, 59(1), 47–61. doi:10.1109/TBC.2012.2220231.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. De Pessemier, T., De Moor, K., Ketykó, I., Joseph, W., De Marez, L., & Martens, L. (2012). Investigating the influence of qos on personal evaluation behaviour in a mobile context. Multimedia Tools and Applications, 57(2), 335–358. doi:10.1007/s11042-010-0712-y.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Geerts, D., De Moor, K., Ketykó, I., Jacobs, A., Van den Bergh, J., Joseph, W., Martens, L., & De Marez, L. (2010). Linking an integrated framework with appropriate methods for measuring qoe. In: Proceedings of the Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX), 2010 Second International Workshop on, pp. 158–163. doi:10.1109/QOMEX.2010.5516292.

  13. Giannakidou, E., Koutsonikola, V., Vakali, A., & Kompatsiaris, I. (2012). In & out zooming on time-aware user/tag clusters. Journal of Intelligent Information Systems, 38(3), 685–708. doi:10.1007/s10844-011-0173-4.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Hoßfeld, T., & Binzenhöfer, A. (2008). Analysis of skype voip traffic in umts: End-to-end qos and qoe measurements. Computer Networks 52(3), 650–666. doi:10.1016/j.comnet.2007.10.008 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S138912860700299X

  15. Huang, T. Y., Huang, P., Chen, K. T., & Wang, P. J. (2010). Could skype be more satisfying? A QoE-centric study of the fec mechanism in an internet-scale voip system. IEEE Network, 24(2), 42–48. doi:10.1109/MNET.2010.5430143.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. International Telecommunication Union (2007). Definition of Quality of Experience (QoE). Liaison statement, ITU-T, International Telecommunication Union Ref.: TD 109 rev 2 (PLEN/12).

  17. Jammeh, E., Mkwawa, I., Khan, A., Goudarzi, M., Sun, L., & Ifeachor, E. (2012). Quality of experience (QoE) driven adaptation scheme for voice/video over ip. Telecommunication Systems, 49(1), 99–111. doi:10.1007/s11235-010-9356-5.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Jelassi, S., Youssef, H., Hoene, C., & Pujolle, G. (2012). Single-ended parametric voicing-aware models for live assessment of packetized voip conversations. Telecommunication Systems, 49(1), 17–34. doi:10.1007/s11235-010-9350-y.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Karapanos, E., Zimmerman, J., Forlizzi, J., & Martens, J. B. (2009). User experience over time: An initial framework. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI ’09, pp. 729–738. New York, NY: ACM. doi:10.1145/1518701.1518814.

  20. Kutner, M. H., Nachtsheim, C. J., Neter, J., & Li, W. (2005). Applied linear statistical models (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

  21. Lambrinos, L., & Djouvas, C. (2013). Improving quality of experience in wireless voip through novel call scheduling. Telecommunication Systems, 52(4), 1905–1916. doi:10.1007/s11235-011-9473-9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Li, X., Toseef, U., Dulas, D., Bigos, W., Görg, C., Timm-Giel, A., et al. (2013). Dimensioning of the lte access network. Telecommunication Systems, 52(4), 2637–2654. doi:10.1007/s11235-011-9593-2.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Llamas, R., Reith, R., & Shirer, M. (2013). Apple Cedes Market Share in Smartphone Operating System Market as Android Surges and Windows Phone Gains, According to IDC. IDC—Press Release (2013). Retrieved August 26, 2013, from http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24257413.

  24. Manousos, M., Apostolacos, S., Grammatikakis, I., Mexis, D., Kagklis, D., & Sykas, E. (2005). Voice-quality monitoring and control for voip. IEEE Internet Computing, 9(4), 35–42. doi:10.1109/MIC.2005.92.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Nováková, L., & Štepánková, O. (2011). Visualization of trends using radviz. Journal of Intelligent Information Systems, 37(3), 355–369. doi:10.1007/s10844-011-0157-4.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Palmieri, F. (2006). Large scale voice over ip experiences on high performance intranets. In S. Chaudhuri, S. Das, H. Paul, & S. Tirthapura (Eds.), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Distributed Computing and Networking (vol. 4308, pp. 355–366). Berlin: Springer.

  27. Princeton University: Pareto distribution (2013). Retrieved August 27, 2013, from http://www.princeton.edu/achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Paretodistribution.html.

  28. Rajaraman, S. (2009). Five Stars Dominate Ratings. YouTube Official Blog. Retrieved July 15, 2013 from, http://youtube-global.blogspot.be/2009/09/five-stars-dominate-ratings.html

  29. Reiter, U. (2011). Overall perceived audiovisual quality: What people pay attention to. In: Proceedings of the IEEE 15th International Symposium on Consumer Electronics 2011 (ISCE), pp. 513–517. doi:10.1109/ISCE.2011.5973883.

  30. Rowe, L. A., & Jain, R. (2005). Acm SIGMM retreat report on future directions in multimedia research. ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications, and Applications, 1(1), 3–13. doi:10.1145/1047936.1047938.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Soldani, D., Li, M., & Cuny, R. (2006). QoS and QoE Management in UMTS Cellular Systems (pp. 1–27). Chichester: John Wiley.

    Book  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Technology, iMinds - WiCa, Ghent University, G. Crommenlaan 8, Box 201, 9050, Ghent, Belgium

    Toon De Pessemier, Luc Martens & Wout Joseph

  2. Department of Communication Sciences, iMinds - MICT, Ghent University, Korte Meer 7-9-11, 9000, Ghent, Belgium

    Isabelle Stevens & Lieven De Marez

Authors
  1. Toon De Pessemier
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Isabelle Stevens
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Lieven De Marez
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Luc Martens
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Wout Joseph
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Toon De Pessemier.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

De Pessemier, T., Stevens, I., De Marez, L. et al. Quality assessment and usage behavior of a mobile voice-over-IP service. Telecommun Syst 61, 417–432 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11235-014-9961-9

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11235-014-9961-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation