Method and Apparatus For Quality of Service Monitoring of Services in a Communication Network

• US 20140043973A1
• Filed: 04/18/2011
• Published: 02/13/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 04/18/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson
• Original Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson
• Inventors: Fallon, Liam, Huang, Yangcheng, Groenendijk, Jan
• Granted Patent: US 9,325,587 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/230
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0896 Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies
• 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 41/5032 Generating service level reports
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5067 Customer-centric QoS measurements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/022 by sampling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/61 taking into account QoS or priority requirements

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method of quality of service monitoring of at least one service in a communication network. The method comprises a first and a second modes. The first mode comprises detecting degradation in quality of service in a communication network by selecting (80) a set of terminal service sessions for providing terminal service session reports; collecting (82) terminal service session information from the selected terminal service sessions; and determining (84) the quality of service in the evaluate quality of service communication network from the terminal service sessions monitored in the first mode. The second mode, being entered when a degradation of service quality in at least part of terminal service sessions is detected (86), comprises identifying at least one factor causing degradation of service quality in the communication network in steps of determining (88) at least one potential factor associated with terminal service sessions having degraded service quality as a candidate factor potentially causing the observed service quality degradation in at least part of the terminal service sessions; collecting (90) terminal service session information from terminal service sessions associated with at least one candidate factor; and evaluating (92) collected terminal service session information for service sessions associated with a candidate factor to identify whether the candidate factor is a cause of service quality degradation.

Claims

1. A method of quality of service monitoring of at least one service in a communication network, comprising:

selecting a set of terminal service sessions for providing terminal service session reports;

collecting first terminal service session information from the selected terminal service sessions; and

determining the quality of service in the communication network from the first terminal service session information; and

identifying at least one factor causing a degradation of service quality in the communication network, wherein identifying the at least one factor comprises;

determining at least one potential factor associated with terminal service sessions having degraded service quality as a candidate factor potentially causing the observed service quality degradation in at least part of the terminal service sessions;

collecting second terminal service session information from terminal service sessions associated with the candidate factor; and

evaluating the collected second terminal service session information to identify whether the candidate factor is a cause of service quality degradation.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the step of collecting the first terminal service session comprises:

sending to all terminals session reporting request configurations containing the selected set of terminal service sessions; and

receiving from terminals running the selected set of terminal service sessions the requested terminal service session reports.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein selecting the set of terminal service sessions comprises:

selecting from a plurality of services in the communication network a sub-set of services providing service reporting coverage for the total network resources to be monitored; and

selecting a set of terminal service sessions relating to the selected sub-set of services;

wherein the selected terminal service sessions of the selected sub-set of services are instructed to send terminal service session reports of the selected sub-set of services.

4. The method as claimed in claim 3, wherein selecting a sub-set of services from a plurality of services comprises:

determining a network monitoring requirement corresponding to the total network resources to be monitored;

for each service, defining the service reporting coverage corresponding to the network resources that can be monitored using terminal service quality information from terminal service sessions of the service; and

selecting from the plurality of services in the communication network one or more services to monitor such that the sum of the service reporting coverage for the selected services covers the network monitoring requirements of the communication network.

5. The method as claimed in claim 4, wherein the services selected from the plurality of services comprise a minimum set of services sufficient to provide a cumulative service reporting coverage sufficient to cover the network monitoring requirements of the communication network.

6. The method as claimed in claim 4, wherein the service reporting coverage for a service is determined from an analysis of the terminal service quality information from previous terminal service session reports for that service.

7. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein selecting the set of terminal service sessions comprises selecting a set of terminal service sessions on a reduced sample reporting basis requiring only a proportion of service sessions of a service or of a network area to send a terminal service session report.

8. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein determining the at least one potential factor associated with terminal service sessions having degraded service quality as a candidate factor comprises:

correlating terminal service quality information from a plurality of terminal service sessions having degraded service quality with a potential factor; and

determining that the quality factor is a candidate quality factor causing degraded service quality if the quality factor is correlated with the terminal service quality information from a plurality of terminal service sessions having degraded service quality.

9. The method as claimed in claim 8, wherein potential factors relate to one or more of:

the service, the network location, the device;

the type of terminal.

10. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein, if a plurality of factors are found as candidate factors in the step of determining at least one factor, the method includes the further steps of:

ranking the candidate factors in order of the likelihood that they are a cause of service quality degradation; and

selecting candidate factors for evaluation in the step of evaluation in the order of their ranking.

11. The method as claimed in claim 10, wherein ranking comprises:

determining the number of degraded sessions associated with the factor; and

ordering a ranked list of a plurality of candidate factors in accordance with the number of degraded sessions associated with the factor.

12. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein evaluating whether a candidate factor is a cause of the degraded service quality sessions comprises determining whether the service sessions having a service degradation are a statistically significant among all terminal service session reception reports associated with that selected factor.

13. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the terminal service quality information is determined from one or more terminal service session reports collected.

14. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising:

configuring a global quality of service resource limit defining the total resource available for monitoring the quality of service for a plurality of services in the communication network;

estimating service reporting resource requirements for each of the plurality of services;

allocating the available global quality of service resource limit to the plurality of services depending upon the estimated service reporting resource requirements for the plurality of services; and

instructing terminals to send terminal service session reports for each of the plurality of services depending on the allocated quality of service resource for that service.

15. The method as claimed in claim 14, further comprising adapting the global quality of service resource limit available depending on demand.

16. The method as claimed in claim 14, further comprising:

determining whether a degradation of service quality in terminal service sessions of the service; and

in response to a positive determination the step of increasing the service reporting resource requirement for the service.

17. The method as claimed in claim 14, wherein the method further comprises the reporting resource requirement of the current terminal service sessions;

determining whether the global quality of resource limit is reached; and

decreasing terminal reporting resource allocated in areas in which a degradation of service quality has not been reported.

18. Apparatus for quality of service monitoring of terminal service sessions in a communications network, comprising:

a service quality reporting controller, SQRO, for requesting terminal service session reports in response to reporting configuration information;

a service quality report collector, SQRC, arranged to collect terminal service quality information requested by the service quality reporting controller, SQRO, in respect of terminal service sessions;

a service quality reporting analyser, SQRA, arranged to receive terminal quality information collected by the service quality report collector, SQRC; and

to provide;

reporting configuration information to the service quality reporting controller, SQRO, to the service quality reporting analyser, SQRA, being operable;

in a first mode to detect degradation in quality of service in a communication network by selecting a set of terminal service sessions for providing terminal service session reports; and

to determine the quality of service in the communication network from the terminal service session information collected from selected terminal service sessions monitored in the first mode; and

in a second mode, entered when a degradation of service quality in at least part of terminal service sessions is detected, the service quality reporting analyser, SQRA, is operable to identify at least one factor causing degradation of service quality in the communication network by determining at least one potential factor associated with terminal service sessions having degraded service quality as a candidate factor potentially causing the observed service quality degradation in at least part of the terminal service sessions; and

to identify whether a candidate factor is a cause of service quality degradation by evaluating the collected terminal service session information for service sessions associated with the candidate factor.

19. A method of allocating resources to quality of service monitoring of terminal service sessions of a plurality of services in a communication network, comprising:

configuring a global quality of service resource limit defining the total resource available for monitoring the quality of service for a plurality of services in the communication network;

estimating service reporting resource requirements for each of the plurality of services;

allocating the available global quality of service resource limit to the plurality of services depending upon the estimated service reporting resource requirements for the plurality of services; and

instructing terminals to send terminal service session reports for each of the plurality of services depending on the allocated quality of service resource for that service.

20. The method as claimed in claim 19, further comprising adapting the global quality of service resource limit available depending on demand.

21. The method as claimed in claim 19, further comprising:

determining whether a degradation of service quality in terminal service sessions of the service occurs; and

in response to a positive determination the step of increasing the service reporting resource requirement for the service.

22. The method as claimed in claim 19, further comprising estimating the reporting resource requirement of the current terminal service sessions;

determining whether the global quality of resource limit is reached; and

decreasing terminal reporting resource allocated in areas in which a degradation of service quality has not been reported.

23. An Apparatus for quality of service monitoring of terminal service sessions in a communications network, comprising:

a service quality reporting controller, SQRO, for requesting terminal service session reports in response to reporting configuration information;

a service quality report collector, SQRC, arranged to collect terminal service quality information requested by the service quality reporting controller, SQRO, in respect of terminal service sessions; and

a service quality reporting analyser, SQRA, arranged to receive terminal quality information collected by the service quality report collector, SQRC; and

to provide reporting configuration information to the service quality reporting controller, SQRO,

the service quality reporting analyser, SQRA, being operable to

configure a global quality of service resource limit defining the total resource available for monitoring the quality of service for a plurality of services in the communication network;

estimate service reporting resource requirements for each of the plurality of services;

allocate the available global quality of service resource limit to the plurality of services depending upon the estimated service reporting resource requirements for the plurality of services; and

instruct terminals to send terminal service session reports for each of the plurality of services depending on the allocated quality of service resource for that service.