VoIP quantity increasing, quality declining

Ouch. The VoIP industry has taken a severe hit in quality over the past year and a half. Indeed, “Internet Phone Quality Drops Significantly and Steadily over Last 18 Months” ran one headline running the story about Brix Networks’ latest study of the market. Brix reported that a whopping 19 percent-plus of VoIP test calls experienced unacceptable call quality over the last 18 months.

The data was collected on TestYourVoIP.com, a service provided by Brix that acts as a voice quality testing portal to enable consumers to independently measure the quality of their broadband internet phone connections. Reportedly nearly one million internet phone tests have been conducted by users from around the world since the launch of TestYourVoIP.com in March 2004.

From late 2004 through mid-2006, say Brix analysts, the test results generated by Test YourVoIP.com showed a consistent decrease in overall voice quality. A mark of 3.6 or better is typically regarded as satisfactory, and 81 percent of recorded calls achieved this score or better. "Over the last few years,” said Kaynam Hedayat, Brix vice president, engineering and chief technology officer, “the global market for consumer VoIP services has grown to nearly 20 million subscribers. … during this same period internet call quality has declined.”

Hedayat theorized that root causes to blame were late packet discards, lost packets, and round-trip voice latency. TestYourVoIP.com is powered by the Brix System, Brix Networks’ integrated hardware and software solutions that test and monitor IP service and application quality. To do analysis, an applet uses the Session Initiation Protocol call-signaling protocol.

Appliance-based Brix verifiers currently installed at test locations in Boston, Helsinki, London, Montreal, San Jose, Sydney, and Vienna measure the quality of the "conversation." Network operators use the Brix System in hopes of guaranteeing successful launch and profitable operation of various IP services, including VoIP, IPTV, and virtual private networks. A commercial version of TestYourVoIP.com is available that enables operators to proactively assess the quality of a potential subscriber’s internet connection to support VoIP services and to provide ongoing, self-help customer support.

An applet is available at TestYourVoIP.com to test the system. Certainly not coincidentally, Brix Networks also announced today that TestYourVoIP.com is now available as an interactive, mini-application users can download. The result is a "weather map" on Google Desktop which displays the internet’s current ability to support real-time services, such as VoIP and IPTV.