QoS measurement of VoIP codec usage on limited bandwidth network over UDP-based VPN

Abstract

The usage of internet protocol for voice communication is widely used and more efficient rather than an analog signal. However, there is no security guaranteed on IP-based voice communication. The voice payload can be easily tapped or even manipulated. In the case of improving the security aspect, communication quality should be also considered. VoIP requires sufficient bandwidth to get proper communication quality. The ITU-T released a standard unit of communication quality, known as Mean Opinion Score (MOS) which is made from the subjective judgments of some individuals. However, MOS method takes time and is expensive. In this research, we measure VoIP communication which is secured by using VPN and build a tool for analyzing the voice packet between communication peers. The tool has capabilities to measure delay, jitter, and packet loss. Since VoIP has a QoS standard by ITU-T, the usage of VPN for security purpose needs to be considered. The sound quality might be decreased due to the addition of header for tunneling method, as well as the additional delay when the encryption processing is carried out. We used 3 types of codec: a-Law, GSM, and iLBC which will be passed on 4 types of bandwidth (256, 128, 64, 32 kbps) through the UDP-based VPN that use 3 types of encryption method (3-DES, Blowfish, AES).