Quality of Experience (QoE) is a subjective measure of a customer's experiences using mobile services.
Although it is tied to the concept of Quality of Service, which attempts to objectively measure the service delivered, QoE also takes in account the needs and the desires of the subscribers when using mobile services. For example an operator may provide reliable data services, and have a high QoS, but the users may still be very unhappy with the content causing a low QoE.
Here are examples of what can impact a subscribers' Quality of Experience:
The operator's radio network can greatly influence QoE through factors such as the coverage of the operator's network, handovers that affect network performance, radio capacity, etc. One example of a measure of the operator's radio network is the frequency of dropped calls.- The devices or terminals that the subscribers are using to connect to the services (such as a Blackberry Handset or a USB Modem). This includes the speed of the device, the radio accessibility, the device software, etc. It is also useful for operators to know what types of devices are using their networks in order to maximize QoE.
- The user interface: The lack of user-friendly interfaces to access services can seriously affect QoE. Also a poor WAP portal design can have a negative effect. With user-friendly interfaces like a WAP portal, QoE can be improved by being more accessible, easy to navigate, and aesthetically pleasing.
- The content on the operator's network is another factor. The relevancy of the content, the packaging, the importance, the quality of the content, and the existence of tailored content all can have a big effect on subscriber QoE. Content is the future of mobile data services and operators with the best content will attract the most subscribers and improve QoE.
- The operator's application servers can also impact QoE. This includes the content servers, the WAP gateway, MMSC, and streaming servers. The connection to these servers and the amount of them on the network can also influence QoE. For example, if the content servers are in low supply, then this will result in long delays times during peak usage times which can lower QoE.
- Customer service can be a big influence on subscriber's QoE. The friendliness and knowledge of the staff, the problem resolution speed can have a big impact because it can directly impact the subscriber's perception of the service.
- Provisioning for WAP, MMS, and streaming settings can affect user QoE when utilizing these services. Provisioning errors in these services can lead to users either stop using these services or prevent them from using them in the first place.
- Network security can also be a big influence on QoE, especially regarding Virus proliferation with MMS as well as hacking attempts while using the operator's services. QoE can greatly drop when subscribers do not feel that the network is secure.
- Price & billing for the operator's service regarding errors or high prices for services can negatively influence a subscriber's QoE. When subscribers feel that services are too expensive or if billing errors are common, QoE can significantly drop.
- The core network (IP equipment, SGSN, firewall) can still affect QoE, even though these are on the back-end and not directly seen. The core network can hurt QoE by subscribers by affecting the connection, delay times, and security.
