MONITORING VOICE QUALITY IN COMMUNICATION NETWORKS

• US 20080014883A1
• Filed: 07/14/2006
• Published: 01/17/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 07/14/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Spirent Communications Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Metrico Wireless, Inc.
• Inventors: Horner, Jeffrey, Topaltzas, Dimitrios
• Granted Patent: US 7,756,484 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/187.1
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/2236 Quality of speech transmission monitoring

Abstract

A method for monitoring voice quality in a communication network. In a first embodiment, the method comprises the steps of: establishing a voice communication pathway (VCPW) between first and second telephone terminals; establishing speech cadence between first and second terminals, wherein the terminals alternate between opposing send and listen/receive modes such that when one of the terminals is sending a voice test message the other terminal is either listening for or receiving the voice test message and vice versa; and calculating a voice quality score for one or more received voice test messages. In a second embodiment, synchronous cadence is established between a plurality of telephone terminals and a voice recognition server (VRS).

Claims

1. A method for monitoring voice quality in a communication network, comprising:

establishing a voice communication pathway between first and second telephone terminals;

establishing speech cadence between first and second terminals, wherein the terminals switch between opposing send and listen/receive modes such that when one of the terminals is sending a voice test message the other terminal is either listening for or receiving the voice test message and vice versa; and

calculating a voice quality score for one or more received voice test messages.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the step of calculating a voice quality score for one or more received voice test messages is preceded by the steps of:

identifying a corresponding voice reference message for one or more received voice test messages, and

synchronizing at least one received voice test message with corresponding reference voice messages to provide one or more pairs of aligned test-reference messages.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein the voice communication pathway spans a public cellular network (PCN) linked a public switched network (PSTN), and wherein the first terminal is a mobile terminal in communication with the PCN, and the second terminal is a phone operably coupled to the PSTN.

5. The method according to claim 3, wherein the communication network comprises a public cellular network (PCN) linked an integrated services digital network (ISDN), wherein the first terminal is a mobile terminal in communication with the PCN, and the second terminal is a phone operably coupled to the ISDN.

6. The method according to claim 1 further comprising the step of directing one or more voice quality scores to a remote computer.

7. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of converting one or more received test messages into WAV format files, and directing the WAV files to a remote computer.

2. The method according to claim 2, wherein the step of calculating a voice quality score for one or more received voice test messages uses a voice recognition application in combination with a quality measurement application, wherein at least one of the received voice test messages is converted to a digital signal, wherein the digital signal is compared to a corresponding reference phrase to generate an objective voice quality score.

8. A method for monitoring voice quality in a communication network, comprising:

establishing voice communication pathways between a plurality of telephone terminals and a voice recognition server (VRS);

establishing speech cadence between the plurality of telephone terminals and the VRS, wherein voice test messages are alternately sent and received in synchrony between the plurality of telephone terminals and the VRS; and

calculating a voice quality score for one or more received voice test messages.

9. The method for monitoring voice quality in a communication network according to claim 8, wherein the VRS is capable of operating in parallel with at least one additional VRS unit.

10. The method for monitoring voice quality in a communication network according to claim 8, wherein one or more received voice test messages are converted to one or more WAV format files, wherein voice quality scores are calculated on at least one of the WAV format files.

11. The method for monitoring voice quality in a communication network according to claim 10, wherein the WAV files are sent over the Internet to remote computers for voice quality scoring.