Telecommunication networks are ever more frequently relying on artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques to detect specific use patterns or potential errors and to take automated decisions when these are encountered. This concept requires that methods be employed to measure the level of quality of a given telecommunication service, i.e. to verify quality of service (QoS) metrics. In a broader context, methods assessing the entire user experience (quality of experience – QoE) are required as well. In this article, various approaches to assessing QoS, QoE and the related metrics are presented, with a view to implement these at an FTTH network operator in Poland. Since this article presents the architecture of the system used to analyze QoE performance based on a number of QoS metrics collected by the operator, we also provide a comprehensive introduction to the QoS and QoE metrics used herein.

Modern telecommunications networks, despite their ever increasing capacity, mostly attributed to optical fiber technologies, still fail to provide ideal channels for transmitting information. Disruptions in ensuring data throughput or the continuous flow of data required by applications remain as major unresolved problems. Most network mechanisms, protocols and applications feature adaptations that allow them to change the parameters of the transmission channel and try to minimize the negative impact of the network on the perceived quality, for example by temporarily changing the modulation scheme, or coding scheme, or by re-transmitting lost packets, or buffering to compensate for the interruptions in transmission. To respond appropriately, network operators are interested in knowing how well these adaptations are performing in order to assess the ultimate quality of their networks from the user perspective, i.e., Quality of Experience (QoE). Due to the huge amount of data associated with the collection of various parameters of the telecommunications network, machine learning methods are often needed to discover the relationships between various parameters and to identify the root cause of the observed network quality. In this paper, we present a Multi-layer QoE learning system implemented by Fiberhost for QoE analysis with a multi-layer approach based on machine learning tools.