Quality of user experience analysis

• US 10,237,144 B2
• Filed: 07/20/2015
• Issued: 03/19/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 10/29/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: T-Mobile USA, Inc. (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Original Assignee: T-Mobile USA, Inc. (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Inventors: Yoon, Jong Sung, Hui, Jie, Sontineni, Kranthi, Kwong, Samson Kim-Sun, Lau, Kevin
• Primary Examiner(s): Skripnikov, Alex
• Application Number:
  US14/803,769
• Publication Number:
  US 20150326447A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,338 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5009 Determining service level performance parameters or violations of service level contracts, e.g. violations of agreed response time or mean time between failures [MTBF]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5025 by proactively reacting to service quality change, e.g. by reconfiguration after service quality degradation or upgrade
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/10 Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/04 Arrangements for maintaining operational condition
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/10 Scheduling measurement reports ; Arrangements for measurement reports

Abstract

The techniques described herein involve analysis of client device Quality of Experience diagnostic files including an operations log or diagnostic files for a client device. The client device Quality of Experience diagnostic files may be generated by a client device and sent to a network node for analysis. The diagnostic files may be analyzed to determine device Key Performance Indicators and a device Quality of Experience, and to determine a root cause of a network problem (such as dropped calls) leading to a diminished Quality of Experience. In some embodiments, the diagnostic files may be aggregated to form a database of aggregated diagnostics, which can be used to further analyze a network to determine the root cause of a network problem. In some embodiments, the aggregated diagnostics may be indexed according to location, time, device type, device problem, or access technology.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, by a network component from a client device, at least one diagnostic file including information about operations performed by the client device in association with one or more communications over a network that were at least attempted by the client device;

analyzing, by the network component, the at least one diagnostic file to determine a device Quality of Experience (QoE) specific to the client device at a location within the network;

determining, by the network component, that the device QoE indicates a degraded QoE for the client device at the location because the device QoE does not satisfy a QoE goal;

in response to determining that the device QoE indicates the degraded QoE for the client device at the location, comparing, by the network component, the device QoE specific to the client device against an aggregated QoE for the location generated from diagnostic files submitted by one or more other client devices; and

determining, by the network component, a root cause of the degraded QoE for the client device at the location based at least in part on the comparing.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one diagnostic file includes state information indicating a state of the client device for a voice communication and location information indicating the location of the client device for the voice communication.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the state information includes at least an error message associated with a dropped call and wherein the location information includes the location of the client device at a time of the dropped call.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the device QoE is determined as a device drop call rate for the client device.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

using a network key performance indicator (KPI) to determine a network call drop rate,

wherein the QoE goal is based at least in part on the network call drop rate, and

wherein the network component determines that the device QoE indicates the degraded QoE when the network call drop rate is lower than the device call drop rate.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

updating the aggregated device QoE based on the at least one diagnostic file received from the client device; and

analyzing the aggregated device QoE to determine at least one QoE trend.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising indexing the aggregated device QoE according to at least one of a device type, a device location, a QoE problem, or an access technology.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the root cause is determined to be a first problem with the network if the comparing shows that the device QoE is within a predefined similarity threshold to the aggregated QoE or a second problem with the client device if the comparing shows that the device QoE is outside the predefined similarity threshold to the aggregated QoE.

9. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions stored thereon that, when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations comprising:

receiving at least one diagnostic file from a client device, the at least one diagnostic file including information about operations performed by the client device in association with communications over a network that were at least attempted by the client device;

analyzing the at least one diagnostic file to determine a device Quality of Experience (QoE) specific to the client device at a location within the network;

determining that the device QoE indicates a degraded QoE for the client device at the location because the device QoE does not satisfy a QoE goal;

in response to determining that the device QoE indicates the degraded QoE for the client device at the location, comparing the device QoE specific to the client device against an aggregated QoE for the location generated from diagnostic files submitted by one or more other client devices; and

determining a root cause of the degraded QoE for the client device at the location based at least in part on the comparing.

10. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 9, wherein the at least one diagnostic file includes state information indicating a state of the client device for a voice communication and location information indicating the location of the client device for the voice communication.

11. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 10, wherein the state information includes at least an error message associated with a dropped call and wherein the location information includes the location of the client device at a time of the dropped call.

12. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 9, wherein the device QoE is determined as a device drop call rate for the client device.

13. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 12, wherein the operations further comprise:

using a network key performance indicator (KPI) to determine a network call drop rate,

wherein the QoE goal is based at least in part on the network call drop rate, and

wherein the network component determines that the device QoE indicates the degraded QoE when the network call drop rate is lower than the device call drop rate.

14. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 9, wherein the operations further comprise:

updating the aggregated device QoE based on the at least one diagnostic file received from the client device; and

analyzing the aggregated device QoE to determine at least one QoE trend.

15. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 14, wherein the operations further comprise indexing the aggregated device QoE according to at least one of a device type, a device location, a QoE problem, or an access technology.

16. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 9, wherein the operations further comprise anonymizing and encrypting the at least one diagnostic file.

17. A system comprising:

one or more processors;

a memory;

one or modules stored in the memory and executable by the one or more processors to perform operations comprising;

receiving at least one diagnostic file from a client device, the at least one diagnostic file including information about operations performed by the client device in association with communications over a network that were at least attempted by the client device;

analyzing the at least one diagnostic file to determine a device Quality of Experience (QoE) specific to the client device at a location within the network;

determining that the device QoE indicates a degraded QoE for the client device at the location because the device QoE does not satisfy a QoE goal;

in response to determining that the device QoE indicates the degraded QoE for the client device at the location, comparing, by the network component, the device QoE specific to the client device against an aggregated QoE for the location generated from diagnostic files submitted by one or more other client devices; and

determining a root cause of the degraded QoE for the client device at the location based at least in part on the comparing.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the at least one diagnostic file includes state information indicating a state of the client device for a voice communication and location information indicating the location of the client device for the voice communication.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the state information includes at least an error message associated with a dropped call and wherein the location information includes the location of the client device at a time of the dropped call.

20. The system of claim 17, wherein the operations further comprise:

updating the aggregated device QoE based on the at least one diagnostic file received from the client device; and

analyzing the aggregated device QoE to determine at least one QoE trend.