Quality Assurance in the IMS-Based NGN Environment

Abstract

Commonly understood as the next generation networks (NGN), a composite environment of proven telecommunications and Internet-oriented mechanisms has become generally recognized as the telecommunications environment of the future. However, the nature of the NGN environment presents several complex issues regarding quality assurance that have not existed in the legacy environments (e.g., multi-network, multi-vendor, and multi-operator IP-based telecommunications environment, distributed intelligence, third-party provisioning, fixed-wireless and mobile access, etc.). In this chapter, a serviceaware policy-based approach to NGN quality assurance is presented, taking into account both perceptual quality of experience and technology-dependant quality of service issues. The respective procedures, entities, mechanisms, and profiles are discussed. The purpose of the presented approach is in research, development, and discussion of pursuing the end-to-end controllability of the quality of the multimedia NGN-based communications in an environment that is best effort in its nature and promotes end user’s access agnosticism, service agility, and global mobility.