System and Method for Determining Quality of Service of a Mobile Device

• US 20130072126A1
• Filed: 09/20/2011
• Published: 03/21/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/20/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Spirent Communications Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Spirent Communications Incorporated
• Inventors: Topaltzas, Dimitrios M., Horner, Jeffrey P.
• Granted Patent: US 8,874,043 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/67.11
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/08 Testing, supervising or monitoring using real traffic

Abstract

A system and method for determining the quality of service in wireless data network by a plurality of mobile devices is provided. In one embodiment, the method includes presenting to a user a plurality of reference content items, for each content item, receiving a reference content item rating indicative of a quality rating provided by the user, wirelessly transmitting a test content item to the mobile device, presenting the transmitted test content item to the user; receiving a test content item rating provided by the user, wherein at least some of the plurality of reference content items comprise content items of known and differing quality, normalizing the test content item rating based on the reference content rating received to provide a normalized test content item rating; and outputting a quality of service performance metric based on the normalized test content item rating.

Claims

1. A method of determining a performance metric provided by a plurality of mobile devices that communicate over a wireless data network, comprising:

(a) presenting a plurality of reference content items to a user with the mobile device;

(b) for each reference content item presented to the user, receiving a reference content item rating indicative of a quality rating provided by the user;

(c) receiving a test content item via the wireless data network at the mobile device;

(d) presenting the received test content item to the user with the mobile device;

(e) receiving a test content item rating indicative of a quality rating for the received test content item provided by the user;

wherein at least some of the plurality of reference content items comprise content items of known and differing quality;

performing (a)-(e) for each of the plurality of mobile devices;

for each of the plurality of mobile devices, normalizing the test content item rating received from each mobile device based on the reference content rating received by the mobile device to provide a normalized test content item rating; and

outputting a performance metric for each of the plurality of mobile devices that is based on the normalized test content item rating of each of the plurality of mobile devices.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising determining whether the reference content item ratings received by each of the plurality of mobile devices are valid;

and

discarding the test content item rating from a first mobile device if the reference content item ratings received by the first mobile device are not valid.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein at least some of the plurality of reference content items comprise content items having a predetermined quality degradation.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein at least some of the plurality of reference content items include artifacts.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the test content item and the plurality of reference content items comprise video content.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the test content item and the plurality of reference content items comprise web content.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the test content item and the plurality of reference content items comprise game content.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the test content item and the plurality of reference content items comprise audio content.

9. The method according to claim 1, further comprising with each of the plurality of mobile devices, transmitting data representing the user input indicative of the quality rating of the test content item and of the plurality of reference content items to a remote device;

and

wherein said normalizing is performed by said remote device.

10. The method according to claim 1, wherein the test content item is received as streaming content.

11. The method according to claim 1, wherein said normalizing comprises dividing data of the test content item rating by data of the plurality of reference content item ratings.

12. The method according to claim 1, further comprising with each mobile device, transmitting network information determined for the network during reception of the test content item.

13. The method according to claim 1, further comprising with each of the plurality of mobile devices, transmitting location information of the mobile device during reception of the test content item.

14. A computer program product stored in one or more non-transitory tangible computer readable having executable instructions to determine a performance metric of a mobile device that communicates over a wireless data network, comprising:

a code segment to transmit a test content item to each of a plurality of mobile devices via a communication path that includes the wireless data network;

a code segment to receive a plurality of reference content ratings from each of the plurality of mobile devices;

wherein each of the plurality of reference content ratings comprises a rating for a different reference content item;

wherein at least some of the plurality of reference content items comprise content items of a differing quality;

a code segment to receive a test content rating from each of the plurality of mobile devices;

a code segment to normalize the test content rating received from each mobile device based on the plurality of reference content ratings from the mobile device; and

a code segment to output one or more performance metrics based on the normalized test content rating of each of the plurality of mobile devices.

15. The computer program product according to claim 14, further comprising a code segment executable to determine whether the reference content ratings received from each of the plurality of mobile devices is valid.

16. The computer program product according to claim 14, further comprising a code segment executable to receive and store in a memory for each mobile device, network information collected by each of the plurality of mobile devices during receipt of the test content item.

17. The computer program product according to claim 14, further comprising a code segment executable to store in a memory, for each mobile device, location information and time information during receipt of the test content item.

18. The computer program product according to claim 14, wherein said code segment to normalize the test content rating is configured to divide data of the test content item rating by data of the plurality of reference content item ratings.

19. A method of determining the quality of service provided by a plurality of mobile devices communicating over a wireless data network, comprising:

receiving a plurality of reference content ratings from a plurality of mobile devices;

wherein each of the plurality of reference content ratings corresponds to a different reference content item;

wherein at least some of the plurality of reference content items comprise content items of differing and predetermined quality;

transmitting a test content item to each of the plurality of mobile devices via the wireless data network;

receiving a test content rating from each of the plurality of mobile devices;

normalizing the test content rating based on the plurality of reference content ratings for each of the plurality of mobile devices; and

outputting one or more performance metrics based on the normalized test content rating of each of the plurality of mobile devices.

20. The method according to claim 19, further comprising determining whether the reference content ratings received from each of the plurality of mobile devices are valid;

and

discarding the test content rating received from the device if reference content ratings received from the mobile device are not valid.