'connect' magazine (PDF) - Orange

Last year, Swiss network providers truly shone in terms of reliability of mobile phone calls. Canthey surpass their own results on this year’s more difficult test route?TelephonyWith success ratios between nearly98 and some 99 percent in urbanareas, Swiss network operators haveshown us what is technicallypossible. Yet, the demands are onceagain much greater in 2012. Besidesthe well-supplied metropolisesof Zurich, Geneva, Basel and Bern,this year‘s test route also includedconsiderably smaller cities withless than 50,000 residents, wherebySchaffhausen and Biel representedthe smallest cities on the route(see page 62). This year, the measurementswere fully set on HDVoice, voice transfer with an extendedfrequency range and optimizedTelefonycompression algorithms, allowinga more natural sounding voicetransmission. Data transfers (Multi-RAB),much larger than in 2011,running parallel to the phone callalso made the voice test more difficult.In order for the test to rate aphone call as successful means thatthe call had to be established within15 seconds and stay stable untilthe end of the call after 75 seconds.During this period a total often voice samples are transferredand rated in line with the very latestpsycho-acoustic insights based onthe POLQA algorithm.Calling in the citiesOrange had no problemsProviderSwisscomOrange SunriseTelephony (cities and surroundings)Success ratio/call establishment time (%/s) 98 / 5,3 98,4 / 4,3 96,5 / 5,2Voice quality/10% poorer than (MOS-LQO/MOS-LQO) 3,1 / 2,7 3,1 / 2,7 2,8 / 2,5Telephony (highways)Success ratio/call establishment time (%/s) 94,7 / 5,6 93,1 / 5 92,6 / 6Voice quality/10% poorer than (MOS-LQO/MOS-LQO) 3,1 / 2,6 3,1 / 2,6 2,8 / 2,4whatsoever in meeting these requirements.Connections were establishedafter an average of 4.3 secondsand remained stable until theend of the cycle 98.4 percent of thetime. The average voice qualitywas a MOS-LQO value (MeanOpinion Score Listening QualityObjective) of 3.1; which on averagecorresponds to a proper qualityvoice transfer with a good soundtendency. 10 percent of the voicesamples were below 2.7, whichmeans that the person at the otherend of the line could generally onlybe understood with great difficulty.In terms of absolute figures, Swisscomscored at the same level, whorecorded just 0.4 percent more errorsand needed an average of onesecond longer to establish a connectionwhen making a call. Orangeas well as Swisscom can becompared to the German Telekomin terms of quality. This howevercan also be attributed to the factthat these network providers haverolled out their superior HD Voiceoffering. Sunrise, with an error ratioof 3.5 percent and a voice qualitythat frequently makes the listenerreally try their best to understand,scored less favorably in thisdiscipline.Calling on the highwayNaturally, the gap widens evenfurther when it comes to makingcalls on the highway. Swisscomprovides a satisfying call experiencewith nearly 5 percent faultycalls, the voice quality almostreaches city levels. Orange also offersgood voice quality onSwitzerland‘s highways, the successratio however plummets to93.1 percent.Noteworthy: During some of thecalls, the testers recorded longerperiods of audio failure, afterwhich the connection was re-established.Sunrise concluded the testwith a slightly higher error ratiothan Orange.This is how connect testsFotos: © astudio / Vaclav Volrab – shutterstock.de / © Peter Fenyvesi (5)P3 communications, the connect measuringpartner sent two test vehicles to take to theroad. One vehicle uses three HTC SensationXE devices to separately measure telephoneand data services. The advantage of thissmartphone model is that it supports HD Voiceand can thus record the superior audio benefitsof state-of-the-art mobile networks. The latestevaluation algorithm wideband POLQA isused to assess voice quality. During the telephonymeasurements, 100 kilobyte e-mailtransfers were run on the smartphones. TheMulti-RAB operation (Multi Radio AccessBearer) takes into consideration that data isfrequently transferred the same time a call isbeing made. Three further HTC Sensation XEphones in test vehicle 1 were adapted in termsof software so data transfers could be measuredautomatically. The preinstalled browserautomatically loaded four very frequentlyused websites one after the other: GoogleNews, Wikipedia, Leo and ETSI. The mobilephone‘s operating system automatically triggeredfile uploads and downloads, the installedvideo player was used for the Youtubetest in standard resolution. Each measuringsmartphone was controlled by a fully equippedindustrial PC. In addition, each smartphonewas connected to an external antenna via a12-dB attenuator which was kept in a roofbox. The reason: In this manner, the telephonesmeasures typical levels ranging betweenindoor, car and outdoor conditions. An enhancedon-board power supply system with a secondgenerators and battery provided the uninterruptedpower supply.The second test vehicle was equipped similarly.During telephony measurements howeverno parallel multi-RAB data transfers wereperformed. Instead of smartphones that arerestricted in terms of speed, the best datasticksfrom the offering of the respective networkoperator were used. They were run on the industrialPCs with Windows 7 and the dashboardsoftware of the network operator. Thisshould provide measurement values as theywould ideally be on a well equipped notebookin the provider‘s network. As much more isrequired from notebooks in terms of data connectionsthan is the case with a smartphone,vehicle 2 also rendered HD Youtube videos inaddition to the standard resolution.On the highways, the network operatorscould show which data rates they could providefor classic uploads and downloads. To preventcostly downtimes during the measurements,spare smartphones, datasticks and controlunits were also on board.Controlled wireless communicationThe measurement vehicles areequipped with boxes androof antennas.57