Multimedia Quality of Experience (QoE)

7 QoE Control, Monitoring, and Management Strategies

Maria G. Martini, Chaminda T.E.R. Hewage, Moustafa M. Nasrall and Ognen Ognenoski

Kingston University, UK

7.1 Introduction

New multimedia systems and services have higher quality requirements, not limited to connectivity: users expect services to be delivered according to their demands in terms of quality. In recent years, the concept of Quality of Service (QoS) has been extended to the new concept of Quality of Experience (QoE) [1], as the former only focuses on network performance (e.g., packet loss, delay, and jitter) without a direct link to perceived quality, whereas the latter reflects the overall experience of the consumer accessing and using the provided service. Experience is user- and context-dependent, that is, it involves considerations about subjective quality and users' expectations based on the cost of the service, their location, the type of service, and the convenience of using the service. However, subjective QoE evaluation is time-consuming, costly, and not suitable for use in closed-loop adaptations, hence there is a growing demand for objective QoE monitoring and control: objective, rather than subjective, QoE evaluation can be used to enable user-centric design of novel multimedia systems, including wireless systems based on recent standards (such as WiMAX and 3GPP LTE/LTE-A) through an optimal use of the available resources based on the aforementioned objective utility index.

The main aim of achieving ...