Only 20% Of VoIP Providers Monitor Call Quality: Survey

The vast majority of voice over IP (VoIP) service providers have no mechanisms in place to monitor service quality apart from customer complaints, according to a new survey from Empirix Inc.

The survey found that only 20% of respondents use VoIP application monitoring systems to ensure service quality, though there is fairly wide concern about VoIP media quality, or the audio quality of voice calls, as opposed to signaling quality. Respondents reported that they expect signal quality problems to decrease over the next two years, while media quality issues will become more significant in the same period.

"The increasing concern with media quality is no surprise," Empirix Vice President Phil Odence said in a statement. "Any service provider offering VoIP is experiencing dramatic growth in their subscriber base which eventually stresses network bandwidth constraints."

In a white paper released last spring, Empirix identified network monitoring as a key element in the success of VoIP services. It notes that the bad reputation that VoIP has for signal quality could inhibit market adoption. To address this, the white paper noted, "It is important that service and equipment providers build into their VoIP solutions the ability to test, measure, and evaluate the performance of the various elements needed to create a VoIP transmission."