Telecommunications Quality of Service Management
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2: AT&T Labs. , USA
3: BT , UK
In today's increasingly competitive communications environment, Quality of Service (QoS) is of paramount importance in the battle to win market share. However, the enhanced expectations of customers and the introduction of many new services and technologies makes comprehending and meeting customer requirements a real challenge. Building on the issues covered in Quality of Service in Telecommunications (1997), this book examines the technical, service and human issues that need to be addressed in order to provide a level of QoS that will meet those requirements. One key objective is to increase the reader's understanding of the importance of QoS and to show how the concepts presented can be applied to the reader's own circumstances. This book provides a comprehensive overview of definitions and standards, frameworks and models, network performance, internet, mobile and satellite services, the impact on customers, external drivers, economics, fraud and security and future trends. The authors, established experts in their fields, have wide-ranging experience in both UK and US telecommunications companies, reflecting the global nature of this industry and the universal concept of QoS.
Inspec keywords: Internet; ergonomics; telecommunication security; customer relationship management; telecommunication network management; quality of service; satellite communication; economics; mobile communication
Other keywords: customer relationship management; Internet service; customer perception; telecommunication security; billing; legacy network; ergonomic consideration; service surround; telecommunication management; quality of service economics; network performance engineering; numbering; telecommunications fraud; mobile communication system; network evolution; architectural framework; satellite communication; service provider
Subjects: Other computer networks; Mobile radio systems; Network management; Satellite communication systems; Computer communications
- Book DOI: 10.1049/PBTE048E
- Chapter DOI: 10.1049/PBTE048E
- ISBN : 9780852964248
- e-ISBN: 9781849190862
- Page count: 636
- Format: PDF
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Front Matter
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Section I: Introduction to Quality of Service
1 Quality
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Management of quality of any product, service or the output of any process (e.g. organisation, manufactured article, a system etc.) can be made easier and professional if both the bottom-up and top-down approach to the understanding of the subject can be made to result in a set of defining statements. This chapter has shown how the application of the basic concepts on quality can be applied to determine the quality parameters of an entity. The remainder of the book develops the quality parameters from these concepts for the understanding and management of QoS in telecommunications.
2 Quality of Service in telecommunications
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Using the concepts on quality from Chapter 1 the features of QoS in telecommunications have been established. After reviewing the state of the art the shortcomings of the present method of managing QoS have been identified and a framework for its study is introduced. The rest of the book deals with different aspects of the framework for the identification, study and management of the key issues and guidelines on how to address these.
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Section II: Framework
3 Four viewpoints of Quality of Service
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Effective management of QoS can be made easier with the aid of the framework described in this chapter. Identifying the key issues for each of the four viewpoints enable a clear focus in their management. A clear focus on issues should enable a better attention to be given for the resolution of problems. This in turn could result in optimised quality, commensurate with the resources expended. The next four chapters deal in more detail with the four viewpoints of QoS.
4 Customers' Quality of Service requirements
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The management of customers' QoS requirements has its own unique set of issues to be addressed. These are best identified and focused by decoupling management issues from other viewpoints of QoS. The chapter offers guidelines to address these issues. The approach may appear rigorous but there is no substitute for the 'fire-brigade' approach of remedying faults as and when they occur. Such an approach should be resorted to only for dealing with unanticipated problems and emergencies and should not be used as a substitute for professional management of determining and studying customer's QoS requirements.
5 Quality of Service offered/planned by the service provider
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The management of 'offered quality' by the service provider is one of the key elements for the successful overall management of quality. It is perhaps in the provision of offered QoS where maximum decision making effort is expended. It is, therefore, necessary to ensure that all relevant information is given due consideration before the planned/offered quality of service targets are finalised. The quality of these decisions will affect not only the quality delivered but the service provider will be judged by the practical way in which QoS is seen to be managed. The next chapter covers the delivered QoS how well the offered QoS has been achieved.
6 Quality of Service delivered by the service provider
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Management of delivered quality, even though the most prevalent among the service providers, requires better professionalism for optimum effectiveness. Scientific determination of relevant sample sizes, appropriate parameters (for optimum benefit to customers, regulators and the service providers) and specification of the most efficient monitoring systems are part of this process. Determination of the delivered performance leads to the next steps in the management of quality: the management of customers' perception of quality, analysis of the execution gap and establishing remedial actions.
7 Customer's perception of Quality of Service
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Customer's perception of quality, expressed by opinion ratings, may be used for effective management of quality by the service providers. In the future more use could be made of customer perception surveys as part of the decision-making processes within a service provider's organisation. More work is also likely to be carried out in under standing the relationships between customer perceptions, expected quality, delivered quality, competition, technology, advertising, customer requirements and other variables. Improvements identified from perception survey ratings could be incorporated into the customers' requirements capture process for inclusion in the next round of the management activities of the quality cycle, thus completing the quality cycle.
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Section III: Existing and emerging network and services
8 Network evolution and its performance
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The objective of this chapter is to present a network background to the subject of telecommunications QoS. A historic view of network evolution shows that the net work evolves as a series of life cycles, each becoming progressively shorter. Current evolution is towards a multiservices IP/ATM network. However, the current expan sion of the Internet is stimulating the growth of e-commerce and this requires the future network architecture to embrace the whole of the information value chain. Application software will now include all of that required by the distributed process ing system needed for e-commerce transactions and QoS will be dependent on many more network performance parameters than hitherto. The chapter has presented a mainly telecommunications centric view of the future network architecture, but there are other views from the computing and information communities that must not be ignored.
9 Network performance engineering of legacy networks
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This chapter has briefly described the main network performance parameters which have a significant impact on customer satisfaction and, hence, in a competitive environment, market share. The increasing change to networks together with the introduction of new services makes performance engineering a complex task and it is necessary to issue detailed guidance to all concerned with the network and services it supports. The most severe degradation that customers can experience is loss of access to the network due to its failure, the greater the network outage the larger the impact on customers. The modern digital network is, in effect, a very large distributed processing system with multiple varieties of exchange processor with a multiplicity of software operating systems and service applications. The complexity of such a system is high and rising with the growth of services and network interconnect between operators. Although standards bodies specify interfaces, it is not possible to produce a detailed unambiguous specification. Hence, application of standards depends on the interpretation of equipment suppliers. Therefore, the risk of incompatibilities is high and the probability of software driven network outages is large. Furthermore, events of the past have shown that even minor errors in software design can cause major service-affecting network problems when unexpected combinations of circum stances or perturbations occur. There is also a long history of 'hacking' into computer networks and the malicious insertion of viruses that can cascade through computer systems rendering them inoperable; there is no reason to assume that telecommunications networks are immune from such attacks. It must be recognised that modern networks are fragile and that the design of networks and systems to maximise the preservation of network integrity is of paramount importance and will have an increasing influence on customer perceived QoS; particularly as networks become more complex and inter-networked services become more sophisticated.
10 Internet, Internet services and Quality of Service framework
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This chapter provides a high-level architecture of the global Internet, reviews ingredients of the World Wide Web, Internet access technologies, real-time and non-real-time Internet services, and a generic framework for identification and definition of parameters influencing users' perception of quality.
11 Quality of Service for real-time Internet applications
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Starting with e-mail and web sites, the progression of Internet applications has continued to other areas such as streaming audio and video, which have larger and more consistent bandwidth requirements, and are more sensitive to network impairments. Even though the quality of video viewed on the Internet today is considerably inferior to that on television, the growth of streaming media has been phenomenal because of the ease of access. The applications include news clips, commercials and live events broadcasting. In addition, businesses often use streaming videos to enhance their enterprise communications with employees around the world. The streaming media application works by creating an encoded file and making it available on a streaming media server. Viewers can access the file over the Internet and play it on the client machine. The quality of streamed video is determined mainly by how the video was created (use of the camera), how it was encoded (choice of encoding parameters), and what the network impairments were at the time of playing the streamed video. Streaming media players help capture performance data that can be used to assess the service performance after processing the captured data. Streaming media performance can be viewed in the QoS-Technical Quality matrix covering the accessibility, continuity and fulfilment measures. The service performance can then be expressed as DPM charts to monitor performance trends over time, as well as daily exceptions.
12 Quality of Service for non-real-time Internet applications
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This chapter introduced a systematic approach for monitoring, quantification and improvement of the QoS of emerging Internet-based services. It focused on the service specific and end-users' perspective of the QoS the way Internet service users view the quality. It first described e-mail and Web applications architecture and then identified and defined user's perceivable service quality for each of these applications. Finally, it classified parameters within the QoS framework of accessibility, continuity, and fulfilment.
13 Quality of Service in telecommunications mobile communication systems
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The last few years or so have seen two great revolutions in communications mobile and the Internet. The Internet phenomenon is actually much wider than just being able to browse the World Wide Web and send e-mail from a home PC it is really a complete data technology revolution. There is the prospect that IP technologies will be able to integrate the networking of all future applications and services when a QoS enabled IP infrastructure is developed and deployed. Current mobile systems, however, overwhelmingly offer a single service voice. They are more usefully compared to the Public Switched Telephony Network (PSTN) than IP networks. However, with the launch of so-called third generation (3G) mobile over the next year or so users will be able to access the Internet, including corporate e-mail and so forth, from high bandwidth, quality-enabled, mobile links. The combination of mobile and Internet technologies/applications is considered by many industry commentators to be the next great communication revolution.
14 Quality of Service of satellite communications
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Satellite systems continue to remain an important segment in the design of communication networks. The over arching benefit of satellite systems is that they are able to provide universality of access. However, the universal availability is constrained by high unit cost and variability of the service experience. Satellite system designers continue to push the frontiers of design and deployment to improve service levels and reduce unit costs. Nevertheless, in general, satellite systems continue to require higher degree of user cooperation than terrestrial and mobile systems.
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Section IV: Customer impact
15 Service surround and customer relationship management
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The QoS that customers experience is very largely determined by how well the supplier organisation meshes with the customer. The customer service surround needs to be considered as one of the key elements in delighting customers and in winning and retaining business. It must be designed as an integral part of the supplier's business, not a costly and ad hoc adjunct. Every aspect of it needs to be viewed from the customer standpoint and not the organisational standpoint.
16 Numbering and billing
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Telecommunications numbering is a strong element in network QoS because it pro vides 'look and feel' and forms part of the user interface. Numbering volatility can inflict great user cost. In this chapter, the principal design factors, a few case studies and future directions were explored. Components of the billing process for providing telecommunications services may be grouped under usage capture (with emphasis on accuracy), accurate inventory management, mediation function (preparation of network usage data into billable information), rating and charging, and invoice production. Accurate billing and presenting this to the customer in an acceptable and pleasing format is one of the dimensions of QoS in telecommunications. This chapter dwells on the key issues and addressing of these issues.
17 Ergonomic considerations in the design of products and services
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Broadband communications offer many exciting possibilities for new services for all kinds of users. This potential can, however, lead designers to believe that being inventive with the technology will be sufficient to create services which users will find valuable. The evidence of the case studies is that technology alone is not sufficient; users are looking for a form of technology which is fit for the purposes they have and has service qualities appropriate to the context of use, for example, is usable, acceptable etc. In the design process by which these services are created it is necessary to develop an understanding of the users' world and to test emerging forms of the service in order to ensure it will work at all levels; the form of interaction is usable, the mix of media is appropriate to the user's purpose, the system can operate within the organisational framework etc. If we can achieve a user-centred design process with these properties at all stages we can realise the enormous potential of these systems without going through a succession of failures before we identify a successful way of delivering the service.
18 Telecommunication services for people with disabilities
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A surprisingly high proportion of the world's population suffer from some form of physical or mental disability, and for many of these people this disability has a major impact on their daily lives. For them the Quality of Service (QoS) measures traditionally used for telecoms services are of little value: their key question is 'has this service been designed in a way which allows me to use it at all?' This chapter is intended to provide a basic appreciation of the needs of this sizeable subset of the overall Telco market, and point to ways in which telecoms operators can assess how effectively they are serving it. The initial sections review the available data on the size and nature of the disability issue, and look at some of the Legislative and Regulatory provisions with which Telco s may need to comply. It then looks at the way in which people with some of the principal types of disability can be helped or hindered by the way in which Telco services are offered to them. A later section considers the implications of disability issues for Telco's internal processes. A huge range of studies have been carried out across the world in recent years into ways of helping people with disabilities make best use of telecoms systems, and the references cited can only provide an initial introduction to the associated literature.
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Section V: External drivers
19 Role of consumer and user groups
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With increased sophistication in telecommunications, the role of the user groups could grow, from that of merely looking after the interests of their members to that of support and partnership, to service providers, regulators and the industry in general, in a more positive way. Contributions could be made by user groups towards the QoS parameters for Internet-based services and mobile services. Absence of such influence could result in the network provider and service provider imposing their concepts of quality on the customers with the possibility of not optimising customer needs with the network capabilities. Special interest groups' requirements also needs to be identified and channelled to the relevant bodies in order to provide justice to the needs of members of such groups.
20 Role of regulation
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Regulators in the telecommunications industry can play a useful role in ensuring that QoS delivered by the service providers are optimal in the interests of the users and customers. Various methods can be used, for example, enforced publication of quality delivered, compensation schemes, carrot and stick approach etc. In some countries there is the tendency for the regulator to back off, leaving the market forces to ensure equilibrium is reached. However, it is debatable if abandoning to the market forces will ensure optimal quality-price relationship to the customer. This, together with the fact that telecommunications is very dynamic and rapidly changing, requires the role of the regulator to be reviewed regularly. Meeting this challenge is also the responsibility of professionals working in the telecommunications industry, perhaps by influencing the role and effectiveness of the regulator.
21 Role of standards
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Standards bodies have played a useful part in the past. The changing requirements due to increased competition, formation of global alliances, convergence of telecommunications, broadcasting, computing and information industry will test the ingenuity of standards bodies. Their contribution in the future will also be tested severely by the increasing range of technical applications and the speed with which these applications are put into large-scale use. Correct timing of developing standards will be a major issue. Other bodies, such as regulators, user groups and research organisations could alleviate the difficulty of producing standards at the right time by making contributions to standards bodies. There is an overwhelming case for an internationally agreed architectural framework for the study and management of QoS. On this frame work the current standards may be mapped and areas requiring further standards may be developed. This could lead to better QoS provided by the network and service providers.
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Section VI: Management of QoS
22 Comparisons of performance
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Comparison of QoS has become necessary in the competitive environment in which telecommunications service provider companies operate. Comparisons are important for users, regulators, service providers and network providers. The user needs to compare delivered performances of various providers within the country and perhaps to a lesser extent that of the international providers. The business user sometimes needs to compare the offered quality both nationally and internationally. Service providers find it necessary to compare their offered and delivered performance against the competitors'. They could also benefit from comparing customer perceptions of their services with those of competitors'. This chapter gives a brief review of some of the existing comparisons, identifies the limitations and proposes solutions to make meaningful comparisons possible.
23 Economics of quality of service
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This chapter has dealt with the economics of QoS in a qualitative manner, since it is not possible to establish direct relationships between all of the cost and benefit elements. Nevertheless, these elements are large in financial terms and can have a major impact on network operator profitability. It is therefore important to understand the economic dimensions of quality and their drivers in order to have an informed view of the financial consequences of QoS initiatives or opportunities.
24 Telecommunications security
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Now, more than ever, is the time for telecommunications operators (Telcos) and their suppliers to refocus attention on the issue of security in networks and support systems. Many operators are burdened with debt and suppliers are facing a downturn in fortunes as their customers take a long hard look at future volumes. In this climate, attention is naturally focused upon eliminating avoidable costs, and this should also encompass losses due to security failure and fraud. This new focus ought, in an ideal world, to build upon already established good governance. Often, however, security is viewed as a barrier to progress. The opposite view may also be taken and a creative Telco can use security as an enabler or value proposition. On a global basis losses due to security failure and fraud have been estimated by the International Forum for Irregular Network Access (FIINA) to be as high as $40 Bn per annum in the telecommunications sector. This is based upon their estimate of a loss of up to 6% of turnover. The telecommunications sector cannot afford to ignore this opportunity. The convergence of voice and data applications and services is upon us. Therefore, this chapter will move freely between those domains as it looks at security definitions (based upon the CIA-A model explained later), principles, relevant threats, vulnerabilities, countermeasures and current developments. The impact of security failure on Quality of Service (QoS) will be felt through degradation of confidentiality, service integrity and service availability.
25 Telecommunications fraud
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The continuing increase in complexity of modern telecommunications networks and products has produced a very difficult situation for Telcos to keep up with fraudsters. Whilst many frauds are undeniably 'low-tech', these people appear to have unusual capacity for uncovering quite sophisticated vulnerabilities and are quite prepared to spend inordinate amounts of effort in exploiting them. They will also mix and match different frauds, for example cascading a PBX fraud with a Split Revenue fraud. A Telco whose fraud losses are running at around 0.2-1% of revenues can be considered to be doing quite well in risk management terms. The effects on QoS are fairly clear although not part of the usual measurement set. Customers harbour (usually) unvoiced expectations of the fraud resistance of the products they buy. These range from simple wireline access through to expensive and complex customer premise equipment like PBXs. More easily visualised in QoS terms is the impact on availability of services which may be occupied with fraud traffic. An example of this was the sudden increase in circuit availability to a distant country when a large scale operator-services fraud was closed down. As a corollary it can be seen that a degradation in QoS performance might be an indicator of a fraud problem. Therefore, traditional QoS measures can provide a useful input to a fraud management system. Modern fraud detection systems are able to detect unusual traffic patterns rapidly and create cases for a 'Mark 1 Human' fraud manager to progress. They are mostly, by design and of necessity, reactive in nature and so must be supplemented by a proactive approach to product design to minimise fraud exposure at the outset.
26 Management of Quality of Service
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Management of QoS in telecommunications involves identifying the key issues to be managed and formulation of suitable strategies. Such management is not a one-off exercise, but a culture of its own. Companies that lasted the test of time have shown that a key element for their continued success is their commitment to and successful management of quality. Quality is also to be continuously improved and is not a static target to be aimed at. Successful management of quality requires education and reasoned thought. There is scope for the 'quick-fix' and 'fire brigade' type approach these are reserved for unforeseen situations and are not recommended for normal management. Successful management of QoS is both an art and science. The science is in the educated and reasoned approach to the individual problems. The art is in combining the various disciplines in the management of QoS (telecommunications engineering, logistics, economics, statistics, customer relationship management and others) in the correct proportion and weight to develop and implement the necessary action plans. Each service provider has to draw up its own plans based on its strategy to operate in the trading environment based on its own philosophy.
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Section VII: Future?
27 Architectural framework for study of Quality of Service
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A methodical approach is necessary to establish a sound foundation for the study and management of QoS. The rewards would be great: much greater synergy from the various studies, less resources spent to attain a resolution and the corresponding benefits being passed on to the equipment manufacturers and the customers. The benefits of an architectural framework for the study and management of QoS should become more apparent when it is put to use. The benefits resulting from the investment of resources for the development of a framework and its subsequent adoption for further studies must be considered before further resources are expended on quality issues. Since more sophisticated service applications and issues regarding optimum economic levels of quality are likely to become more pertinent in the future, the time is considered ripe now for the development and adoption of an effective architectural framework.
28 Quality of Service, the future
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The world is entering a new information age driven by such things as technological convergence, multimedia, social changes, globalisation of business and entertainment, developments in consumer electronics, the emergence of e-commerce and the rise of the, so-called, information workers. There are already signs that the information age is beginning to overtake the traditional industrial age in terms of investment and output. The rise of the Internet, with its ubiquitous, global communication and the Web that provides a common and simple interface, has caused a paradigm shift in the conduct of trading by the introduction of e-commerce, that is, the selling/purchasing via an electronic communications medium. This can be via TV, fax, online networks and the Internet, particularly when facilitated by the ease of use made possible by the World Wide Web (WWW). The efficiency of trading is enhanced because much of the transaction processing is automated, for example, e-mail, online directories, trading support systems, customised services and goods, ordering and logistic support systems, settlement support, management information systems etc. It has also caused a paradigm shift from the traditional telecommunications function of providing a communications channel between a caller and recipient, which is evolving to connecting a buyer to a seller. Thus, perception of QoS will depend on a user's experience of the transaction in addition to that of the tradition telecommunications service. This chapter considers the evolution of the telecommunications environment and speculates on its impact on QoS.
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Appendix 1: Quality parameters of diamond
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Four parameters specify the quality of diamond. These are cut, clarity, colour, weight. The categories for colour and clarity are reproduced here. The weight of diamond is expressed in carats, one carat being 0.2 g. Cut is too complicated to express in a book on QoS of telecommunications. Readers interested in this aspect are invited to read the manual referenced at the end of these tables.
Appendix 2: Quality and TQM
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This appendix discusses the management of quality of a product, service or a process is not best done in isolation, but as part of a total quality management affecting it directly or indirectly. Such an approach is known as Total Quality Management (TQM) and a brief summary of it is given here. TQM may be defined as philosophy and company practices that aim to harness the human and material resources in the most effective way to achieve the objectives of the organisation. TQM is basically geared for quality performance of every function in an organisation. The characteristics of TQM are embraced in universal participation; focus on customer needs; everything is a process which contributes to quality; continuous process improvement; better performance at lower cost; excellence in communication and understanding.
Appendix 3: Template for a typical service level agreement
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This appendix discusses service level agreement. These may include 'clarification of responsibilities', 'enhancement or effectiveness of service delivery' and 'service performance aspects'.
Appendix 4: Cell descriptions on the matrix to facilitate capture of Quality of Service criteria
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A matrix was described to facilitate identification of Quality of Service (QoS) criteria for telecommunication services. In this appendix the cell descriptions are generic QoS criteria. Service specific QoS criteria are derived from these, wherever applicable. The matrix is reproduced here for convenience.
Appendix 5: Sample questionnaire to capture customers' Quality of Service requirements
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In Chapter 4 the use of questionnaires to capture customer's QoS requirements was mentioned. In this appendix a sample of such a questionnaire is given.
Appendix 6: Typical Quality of Service parameters/criteria for telecommunication services
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In this appendix we give QoS parameters, considered pertinent from the user's perspective, for five services. Some or all of these, or more parameters may be considered by service providers while drawing up a list for performance reporting of their services.
Appendix 7: Regulatory requirements on service performance to be reported on a regular basis in the UK
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This appendix talks about the regulatory requirements on service performance that will be reported on a regular basis in the UK.
Appendix 8: Regulatory requirements on service performance to be reported on a regular basis in Australia
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A comprehensive set of parameters and the results achieved by the various service providers are on the website: http://www.aca.gov.au under the Telecommunications Performance Monitoring Bulletin. The following list gives a flavour of what is in the web site. Readers are advised that the parameters and customer satisfaction matters are regularly reviewed and the web site should be consulted for the latest information.
Appendix 9: Regulatory requirements on service performance to be reported on a regular basis in the USA
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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has a complex set of rules for reporting QoS. A set of recommended parameters is given in this appendix.
Appendix 10: Fault incidence and repair time: OECD member countries - 1999
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Lists 1999 figures for the faults per 100 lines per year and the percentage of faults repaired within 24 hours for OECD member countries.
Appendix 11: Sustaining supplier services
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The recent failure of a number of telecoms service suppliers has demonstrated the need to be vigilant when buying services. This suggests that a QoS framework should consider not only the supplier's financial stability, but also the steps that should be taken to ensure continuity of service. In the UK, the DTI has initiated such a discussion and the results of the consultation and the subsequent developments are awaited with interest.
Back Matter
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