QUALITY OF EXPERIENCE ENHANCEMENT THROUGH FEEDBACK FOR ADJUSTING THE QUALITY OF SERVICE IN COMMUNICATION NETWORKS

• US 20140016464A1
• Filed: 09/27/2012
• Published: 01/16/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 07/11/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson
• Original Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson
• Inventors: Shirazipour, Meral, Krishnan, Suresh, Charlot, Gregory
• Granted Patent: US 9,203,764 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/235
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/11 Identifying congestion
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/24 Traffic characterised by specific attributes, e.g. priority or QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/26 using explicit feedback to the source, e.g. choke packets

Abstract

A method of enhancing Quality of Experience (QoE) associated with an application flow for an end-user in a communication network comprises: receiving a packet belonging to the application flow, the packet comprising QoE information determined based on previous packets exchanged within the application flow; decoding the QoE information from the received packet; and adjusting a QoS mechanism for the packet, based on the decoded QoE information for enhancing the QoE of the application flow. A network node for carrying out this method is disclosed. Also, a method for relaying QoE associated with an application flow for an end-user in a communication network comprises: receiving packets belonging to the application flow; calculating QoE information based on the received packets; and sending the calculated QoE information back to the communication network, the QoE information being included in a packet belonging to the application flow. A network node for carrying out this method is disclosed.

Claims

1. A method of enhancing Quality of Experience (QoE) associated with an application flow for an end-user in a communication network, the method comprising:

receiving a data packet belonging to the application flow, at a communication interface of a network node, the packet comprising QoE information determined based on previous packets exchanged within the application flow;

decoding the QoE information from the received packet by a processor of the network node; and

adjusting a QoS mechanism for the packet, based on the decoded QoE information for enhancing the QoE of the application flow.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the QoE information determined based on the previous packets is determined by a Mean Opinion Score (MOS) calculator for Voice over IP applications, and fed back to the communication network.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the QoE information is encoded in a header of the received packet.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the received packet further comprises a payload containing application data.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein receiving the packet comprising receiving the packet using Congestion Exposure (ConEx) protocol over Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) and wherein the QoE information is encoded in the header of the packet, using a single available bit.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein receiving the packet comprises receiving the packet using a Congestion Exposure (ConEx) protocol over Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) and wherein the QoE information is encoded in an extension header of the packet.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the QoE information is one of a QoE value, a QoE variation, a QoE speed variation and a QoE single-bit signaling.

8. The method of claim 3, wherein decoding comprising parsing the header of the received packet and extracting the QoE information.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein adjusting a QoS mechanism comprises comparing the decoded QoE information with a QoE target value.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein adjusting a QoS mechanism comprises upgrading the packet to a higher priority queue in active queue management if the decoded QoS information is inferior to the QoE target value.

11. A network node for enhancing Quality of Experience (QoE) associated with an application flow for an end-user in a communication network, the network node comprising:

a communication interface for receiving a packet belonging to the application flow, the packet comprising QoE information determined based on previous packets exchanged within the application flow; and

a processor operationally connected to the communication interface and configured to;

decode the QoE information from the received packet; and

adjust a QoS mechanism for the packet, based on the decoded QoE information for enhancing the QoE of the application flow.

12. The network node of claim 11, wherein the QoE information determined based on the previous packets is fed-back to the communication network.

13. The network node of claim 11, wherein the QoE information is encoded in a header of the received packet and the received packet further comprises a payload containing application data.

14. The network node of claim 13, wherein the communication interface receives an IPv4 packet using Congestion Exposure (ConEx) protocol and the QoE information is encoded in the header of the packet, using a single available bit.

15. The network node of claim 14, wherein the communication interface receives an IPv6 packet using Congestion Exposure (ConEx) protocol and the QoE information is encoded in an extension header of the packet.

16. The network node of claim 11, wherein the QoE information is one of a QoE value, QoE variation, QoE speed variation and QoE single-bit signaling.

17. The network node of claim 13, wherein the processor decodes the QoE information by parsing the header of the received packet and extracting the QoE information.

18. The network node of claim 13, wherein the processor compares the decoded QoE information with a QoE target value.

19. The network node of claim 11, wherein the processor adjusts the QoS mechanism by upgrading the packet to a higher priority queue in active queue management, if the decoded QoE information is inferior to the QoE target value.

20. A method for relaying Quality of Experience (QoE) associated with an application flow for an end-user in a communication network, the method comprising:

receiving packets belonging to the application flow;

calculating QoE information based on the received packets; and

sending the calculated QoE information back to the communication network, the QoE information being included in a packet belonging to the application flow.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the QoE information is calculated by a Mean Opinion Score (MOS) calculator for Voice over IP applications.

22. The method of claim 20, wherein the QoE information is encoded in a header of the packet, the packet further comprising a payload for carrying application data.

23. A network node for relaying Quality of Experience (QoE) associated with an application flow for an end-user in a communication network, the network node comprising:

a communication interface for receiving packets belonging to the application flow; and

a processor operationally connected to the communication interface for calculating QoE information based on the received packets;

the communication interface further for sending the calculated QoE information back to the communication network, the QoE information being included in a packet belonging to the application flow.

24. The network node of claim 23, wherein the QoE information is encoded in a header of the packet, the packet further comprising a payload for carrying application data.