Agilent's Drive Test for VoIP Enables Wireless Carriers to Ensure Quality of Lucrative Voice Services

Although carriers are migrating to IP-based networks such as WiMAX(tm) and LTE so they can deliver a wide-range of data services, voice will remain the primary source of revenue in the foreseeable future, said Dave Stewart, general manager Drive Test Business with Agilent's Network Solution Division. Voice quality is the major determinate of customer satisfaction, and operators will not profit from additional services if they can't keep customers with high-quality voice communication. Our solution uses the same database for VoIP and RF measurements and enhances engineers' ability to ensure the quality of all services by correlating voice and RF data.

The new solution provides end-to-end service quality measurements of SIP-based VoIP communication. It works by generating real-time transport protocol (RTP) streams that mimic VoIP traffic. The software takes time-stamped measurements as the RTP traffic flows between two endpoints in the data network. The measurements include R-Factor MOS, packet loss, delay and jitter, and can be automated within the same drive test software that simultaneously measures RF. The VoIP solution works for all established mobile data service such as WiMAX, UMTS, EVDO and will work for LTE as soon as a compliant phone is developed.