34 I ICT TODAY
HOW TO ENSURE RELIABLE,
HIGH QoE VIDEO STREAMING
APPLICATIONS IN LANS
There is an explosion of devices being connected to the networks in buildings, from
cameras to digital signage to sensors, that make up what is commonly referred to
as the internet of things (IoT). These widely varying applications are putting many
unforeseen demands on the performance and reliability of circuits, especially those
serving the high-bandwidth requirements of IPTV and video streaming.
The need to provide high quality of service (QoS) levels for video streaming apps
has produced a new metric in the industry called quality of experience (QoE); this is
what people actually see when they are viewing their device and is a measure of the
overall level of customer satisfaction with their service or vendor. This visual obser-
vation is much more demanding due to multiple users' different equipment
(e.g., smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktops) than the grainy, black and white video
quality of some in-building security cameras. If people are constantly experiencing
negative results, such as picture freezing, pixelation, and excess buffering, QoE suffers
and they will let someone know about it!
By Russ Gundrum,
MBA, PMP
