ITU Workshop on QoS and QoE of Multimedia

Applications and Services

Haarlem, The Netherlands 9-11 May 2016

Discovery of the new Recommendation

ITU-T G.1028:
End-to-end QoS for voice on Mobile
networks 4G (VoLTE)
Vincent BARRIAC,
R&D, Orange Labs, [email protected]
 Brief Reminder
G.1028 Is the number assigned after its approval further the Project of Recommendation previously
known as "G.VoLTE.

Three Years span between the idea and the adoption

March 2013: proposal for Launching a study question (Contributions C 074 and 076) and Acceptance for inclusion into the Program of the
question 11/12 ("Performance interworking and traffic management for Next Generation Networks")
November 2013: First items of shared Knowledge (Contribution C 127) and decision to launch drafting G.VoLTE
September 2014: First version of G.VoLTE (Contribution C 189)
May 2015: Second Version of G.VoLTE (Contribution C 241)
January 2016: Submission of G.VoLTE for consent of the Study Group 12 (contribution C 288, evolved to TD 873 rev 1 after session
amendments and entry In the Accelerated Approval Procedure (AAP)
1-28 February 2016: Last Call for Comments (1 Comment received from Ericsson)
6 April 2016: adoption of G.1028

A lot of external standards ITU-T are referred In G.1028:

3GPP: Definitions and Specifications of mobile networks and services
IETF: Associated IMS protocol aspects for VOLTE services
GSMA: Definition of the VoLTE service from the mobile operator standpoint
 Basic Notions of the VoLTE service
Chapters 6 and 7

The VoLTE presupposes the use of the following elements

4G access network (E-UTRAN)
Compatible terminals
Core Network associated to 4G (EPC) and connected to e-UTRAN by an eNodeB
IMS Platform and use of the SIP Signalling Protocol
Interconnection with the Circuit Switch world (2G, 3G, PSTN)
 Basic Notions of the VoLTE
service (continued) Chapters 6 and 7

The mechanisms considered as optional but taken into consideration in G.1028:

RoHC
TTI bundling
DTX, DRX
SPS
SIP Preconditions QCI GBR Priority Delay Packet loss Example Of Service
budget budget
Classification Of QOS (Use Of QCI) 1 Yes 2 100 Ms 10-2 Voice

5 for SIP 5 Non 1 100 Ms 10-6 IMS signaling

1 for Voice in real time

Audio Coding in AMR or AMR WB, with support of TrFO

Functionalities for future versions of G.1028
SRVCC
VoWiFi
ViLTE ?
 Call Cases Considered In G.1028
Chapters 7.1 to 7.4
LTE-LTE
-With and Without Roaming

LTE-3G

LTE-RTC
 Identification of Main Degradations
of Perceived Quality
Chapter 8
Family 1: Difficulties related to service delivery Annex 1
Registration (IMS/SIP)
Call Establishment
Call End (more or less desired)

Family 2: Difficulties related to the Audio Contents of the Service (Similar To

the other mobile services)
Frequency Contents (Coding, Distortions)
Interruptions, Cuts
Delay, Difficulties of interactivity
Background noise

Impact of the use of VoLTE on the other elements : not dealt within G.1028
QoS of data services
Lifetime of the Battery
Identification of Main Degradations
of Perceived Quality
Chapter 8
 Selection of QoS indicators (1/2)
Name Definition Corersponding IP Metric
Registration success rate Rate of successful registration KPI related to IMS and based on P-CSCF
attempts in the VoLTE service. counters
Chapter 9
Equivalent to 1 Ineffective
Registration Attempt (IRA) ratio (see
IETF RFC 6076)
Service availability End to end service availability in Network Efficiency Ratio (NER)
terms of capacity to establish calls Measures the ability of network, from the
from, and to, a VoLTE customer. service platform point of view, to deliver
calls to the VoLTE customer,
For the SIP Protocol, NER = SEER
(see IETF RFC 6076)
Post Dialing Delay (PDD) Time interval (in seconds) between SIP session set up time
the end of dialling by the caller and Interval between sending INVITE
the reception back by him of the message (with SDP) and ACK (180 or
appropriate ringing tone or recorded 200) message by the originating side.
announcement.
Equivalent to successful Session
request delay
(SRD) (see IETF RFC 6076)
 Selection of QoS indicators (2/2)
Name Definition Metric IP Box

Voice Quality (MOS-LQ) Equivalent to Speech Quality as Network Quality index (G.107, P.564)
defined in ITU-T P.10/G.100.
IP Packet loss ratio (see definition of IPLR in Chapter 9
Models like those defined in ITU-T Y.1540): several possible measurement points
P.862 and P.863 provide an objective
view on the quality of the voice signal
as it may be perceived by the
customer.
Mouth-to-Ear Delay Time it takes for the speech signal to IP Packet Transfer Delay (see definition of
go from the mouth of the speaker to IPTD in Y.1540)
the ear of the listener.
Round Trip Time
Corresponds approximately to twice the end-
to-end delay
Can be measured based on RTCP protocol
messages
Call drop rate Service continuity in terms of capacity to Session completion Rate
maintaincalls to their normalend.
KPI related to IMS and based on P-CSCF
counters
Equivalent to Session Completion Ratio (SCR),
as defined (See IETF RFC 6076)
Speech bandwidth (NB, WB or SWB) Measurement of the bandwidth used Codec statistics
(normal NB or WB, or even partial and
Information related to the selection of (AMR
unwanted bandwidth limitation).
and AMR WB) codec and codec modes, as
well as switch between them, accessible on
SIP protocol messages.
 A few Objectives for Quality
Tables 3 to 6
G.1028 does not set imperative objectives
Nevertheless, on the basis of the existing knowledge , a budget of degradation is proposed
For each of the retained indicators
For each link of the transmission chain ( terminal, e-UTRAN, EPS, IMS, Interconnection), as well as for the whole.

A few examples :

Indicator Call type Overall budget Specific budget

Availability 4G-4G or 4G-fixed 99%
4G-3G 98%
PDD 4G-4G 3.5 s (4 s if
interconnection)
4G-3G 4.5 s
CSFB 6s
MOS- 4G-4G 4 (AMR-WB And TrFO)
LQOSW
4G-3G 3.8 (AMR WB and TrFO)
4G-RTC 3.1 (AMR)
Transmissio All 400 ms Device : 190 ms (sending + receiving)
n time E-UTRAN: 80 ms
EPS: 50 ms
Dropped 4G-4G And 4G-PSTN 2% RTC = 0%
call rate
4G-3G 3%
 Strategy of Measurement and
Supervision
Several measurements points are possible Chapters 10.1 and 10.2
At end points, where the client have access to the service (points A and J)
At places where the transmitted signal is accessible, generally at demarcation points between Network portions (Points B, D, E and G)
At places where with an end to end service from a signaling point of view ( points C, F and H, but also E).

Three complementary approaches

For Troubleshooting
For Monitoring
For Reporting
 Link with the ecosystem of ITU-T
standards
Chapter 10.3
Several indicators, not specific to the VoLTE, are already defined
E.800: Availability, PDD
E.804: Drop call rate
P.10/G.100: Voice quality , delay, frequency Distortion
Y.1540: Metrics for IP transport

The evaluation of Voice Quality is the subject of many useful recommendations

Parametric models like P.564 (measurement) or G.107 (planning)
Signal Based models: P.863, P.563

Some acceptability thresholds in existing standards apply also to the VoLTE

G.114 for the values of delay
G.109 for the R factor (G.107)
Y.1541 for the metrics for IP transport