Provisioning QoE over Converged Networks: Issues and Challenges

The last decade has seen the emergence of the concept of converged IP networks, which make use of a multitude of heterogeneous core and access networks. We have also witnessed the proliferation of numerous multimedia services such as audio/video streaming, VoIP, or IPTV. The users' satisfaction and the perceived quality are being recognized as crucial for the successful provisioning of these services over such networks. User perceived quality has become known as Quality of Experience (QoE) and standard architectural solutions have been proposed, which made recommendations as to where and how to estimate QoE at the user level. This paper introduces the reader to this important concept. The recommended metrics and approaches proposed for QoE estimations of media services over IP networks are concisely described. We also discuss the QoE challenges in converged networks.