Our first impressions about IP-telephony in 4G Yota LTE network
As many already know, on May 10, Yota launched LTE in Moscow. Over the past 2 days, the company has been overwhelmed with a huge amount of negative emotions about the poorly thought-out organization of the transition, replacement of equipment, quality of service, etc. But at the same time, many users who managed to get the coveted “whistle” or updated router in time and connect to the network, rub their hands and enjoy rather high (in the wireless network segment) Internet access speeds. We would like to set aside the moral and ethical aspects of customer service and see what we are seeing on the network now and raise a number of topical questions about the additional IP-telephony service on the Yota network. Moreover, the company Yota asked to assess the performance of its network. Well, let's try.
In order to understand what awaits us in the future, it is always useful to refer to history. A few words about how IP telephony worked in a WiMAX network.
For us, as for a company engaged in voice services and the presentation of communication services, cooperation with Yota began back in 2009. We were one of the first VoIP telecom operators who, in accordance with an agreement with the leadership of Yota, in June 2009 began selling RTR solutions (Ready-to-Run) for small businesses that included a router with already connected phone numbers - it was enough turn on the router in the socket, insert the phone into the connector and you could have unlimited internet and phone at a very attractive price. For many companies that were under the monopoly control of “pocket” telecom operators in various business centers, this kind of decision came at an opportune moment with sharp cost cuts in the midst of a crisis. Preconfigured routers left us like hot cakes.
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In July 2009, we were able to convince Yota that it was necessary to prioritize traffic for voice services, that is, to use QoS. If one of the clients started to actively download something during a telephone conversation through a router, this affected the quality of the conversation. After lengthy experiments with technical services and two-way “fine-tuning” of the equipment, Yota turned on QoS - the channel width for telephony was about 160 Kbps. This was enough for two simultaneous telephone conversations in the G711a codec or about four conversations in the G729a codec. In practice, we had several servers - some of them were tied to QoS (by IP addresses), and some we did not include in this process, because sometimes clients needed more than 4 conversations. In this case, a separate router was installed under them, and everything worked phenomenally stably and well.
However, in September 2009, there was such an influx of subscribers that the network has already ceased to cope physically, Yota was forced to turn off QoS, citing the fact that this creates an additional load on their network. As a result, many customers experienced some inconvenience due to the reconfiguration of equipment on the Yota network. As a result, personal work was carried out with each client - some customers reduced the number of lines, strengthened antennas were installed to someone, built their channels somewhere, somewhere agreed with other operators about compromise solutions through channels, but we were able to keep customers and their loyalty. And we have been successfully working with many so far.
Realizing that additional services (in particular, voice) can bring additional benefits to the company, in the fall of 2009, Yota announced Cosmos to provide all its customers with telephony. We already realized that with this level of network development, it is unrealistic. And so it happened - the company very quickly turned this project.
Over time, the situation returned to normal, and we resumed customer connectivity in 2010. They did this only after a preliminary three-day test on the client's equipment - the network was not everywhere with acceptable quality parameters, since IP-telephony requires not only high download speed, but a good return channel.
In February 2012, we were pleasantly surprised by the opportunity to resume closer cooperation and give a second life to our RTR solution. One of the first to send a request to replace the router with built-in telephone ports. They brought him to us exactly 10 numbers at 12 o'clock in the afternoon. I don’t want to remember about the dialogues that preceded the delivery with couriers. But this is not the point.
So, we set up accounts for telephone ports, turned on the phone. With a very weak signal level (one lamp indicating the signal level on the router), the channel speed was about 6 Mbit / s per input and about 5 Mbit / s per output. Not bad for a start. Having made the first telephone conversation in the G711a codec, they noticed that during long conversations a small echo appears from time to time. Linksys SPA303 IP-phone was plugged into the router - the echo was gone, the quality was significantly improved. Conclusion - the function of echo cancellation in the router is implemented with some flaws. Then we decided to try the G729a codec. The quality of the conversation turned out to be much higher - no extraneous noise, echo. During a conversation for more than 10 minutes there was not a single interruption or loss of words. It even surprised us a little and alerted us - all too well for now. The average network latency was 40-60 ms. Compared to 120-150 ms in a WiMAX network, we consider this a very good parameter.
On the morning of the 11th, of course, the router required a binding in the personal account. Tied to a free tariff plan - 64 Kbps. The quality of telephone communication, even through such a channel, was no different from yesterday’s. Not a single registration loss on our servers - we had to set shorter intervals on WiMAX, otherwise the accounts simply “hung” and the incoming connection did not work periodically. In LTE, this is not observed. Everything is pretty smooth and stable. Considering that WiMAX in the room where it was tested, telephony did not work at all, such tests for LTE instill reasonable optimism. Today, many customers who used to sit on WiMAX have asked for help in reconfiguring their newly activated equipment - so far no negative feedback, our telephony works for all customers.
According to our feelings, QoS is now not included at all. With active downloads at the time of the conversation, although there are no obvious interruptions, as was the case with WiMAX, some artifacts still appear. And the LTE network turned out to be very sensitive to the movement of the router - with the slightest movement or touch, the connection starts to be interrupted.
There are concerns that a situation similar to what happened in the spring of 2009 may arise - the network operates at fairly high speeds, apparently due to the small number of active subscribers. Even with a weak signal level, the network allows you to comfortably work and receive various additional services, such as IP-telephony and video calls.
In connection with the fairly good results of the first tests of IP telephony in the LTE network, I would like to ask Yota a few questions:
1. Will QoS be implemented for different types of traffic or will the principle of network neutrality be preserved?
2. At the moment when Yota launches its own voice services (and they will, there is no reason to doubt this), will similar services of other operators be deliberately blocked?
3. What is the current load on the network - is it more or less than the one that was in WiMAX?
PS For users who connect via LTE routers, we expect to make a separate tariff plan with a free connection of a two-channel number in the code (495) or (499). And now we are ready to provide everyone with test credentials to test IP telephony services on the Yota network.
In order to understand what awaits us in the future, it is always useful to refer to history. A few words about how IP telephony worked in a WiMAX network.
For us, as for a company engaged in voice services and the presentation of communication services, cooperation with Yota began back in 2009. We were one of the first VoIP telecom operators who, in accordance with an agreement with the leadership of Yota, in June 2009 began selling RTR solutions (Ready-to-Run) for small businesses that included a router with already connected phone numbers - it was enough turn on the router in the socket, insert the phone into the connector and you could have unlimited internet and phone at a very attractive price. For many companies that were under the monopoly control of “pocket” telecom operators in various business centers, this kind of decision came at an opportune moment with sharp cost cuts in the midst of a crisis. Preconfigured routers left us like hot cakes.
')
In July 2009, we were able to convince Yota that it was necessary to prioritize traffic for voice services, that is, to use QoS. If one of the clients started to actively download something during a telephone conversation through a router, this affected the quality of the conversation. After lengthy experiments with technical services and two-way “fine-tuning” of the equipment, Yota turned on QoS - the channel width for telephony was about 160 Kbps. This was enough for two simultaneous telephone conversations in the G711a codec or about four conversations in the G729a codec. In practice, we had several servers - some of them were tied to QoS (by IP addresses), and some we did not include in this process, because sometimes clients needed more than 4 conversations. In this case, a separate router was installed under them, and everything worked phenomenally stably and well.
However, in September 2009, there was such an influx of subscribers that the network has already ceased to cope physically, Yota was forced to turn off QoS, citing the fact that this creates an additional load on their network. As a result, many customers experienced some inconvenience due to the reconfiguration of equipment on the Yota network. As a result, personal work was carried out with each client - some customers reduced the number of lines, strengthened antennas were installed to someone, built their channels somewhere, somewhere agreed with other operators about compromise solutions through channels, but we were able to keep customers and their loyalty. And we have been successfully working with many so far.
Realizing that additional services (in particular, voice) can bring additional benefits to the company, in the fall of 2009, Yota announced Cosmos to provide all its customers with telephony. We already realized that with this level of network development, it is unrealistic. And so it happened - the company very quickly turned this project.
Over time, the situation returned to normal, and we resumed customer connectivity in 2010. They did this only after a preliminary three-day test on the client's equipment - the network was not everywhere with acceptable quality parameters, since IP-telephony requires not only high download speed, but a good return channel.
In February 2012, we were pleasantly surprised by the opportunity to resume closer cooperation and give a second life to our RTR solution. One of the first to send a request to replace the router with built-in telephone ports. They brought him to us exactly 10 numbers at 12 o'clock in the afternoon. I don’t want to remember about the dialogues that preceded the delivery with couriers. But this is not the point.
So, we set up accounts for telephone ports, turned on the phone. With a very weak signal level (one lamp indicating the signal level on the router), the channel speed was about 6 Mbit / s per input and about 5 Mbit / s per output. Not bad for a start. Having made the first telephone conversation in the G711a codec, they noticed that during long conversations a small echo appears from time to time. Linksys SPA303 IP-phone was plugged into the router - the echo was gone, the quality was significantly improved. Conclusion - the function of echo cancellation in the router is implemented with some flaws. Then we decided to try the G729a codec. The quality of the conversation turned out to be much higher - no extraneous noise, echo. During a conversation for more than 10 minutes there was not a single interruption or loss of words. It even surprised us a little and alerted us - all too well for now. The average network latency was 40-60 ms. Compared to 120-150 ms in a WiMAX network, we consider this a very good parameter.
On the morning of the 11th, of course, the router required a binding in the personal account. Tied to a free tariff plan - 64 Kbps. The quality of telephone communication, even through such a channel, was no different from yesterday’s. Not a single registration loss on our servers - we had to set shorter intervals on WiMAX, otherwise the accounts simply “hung” and the incoming connection did not work periodically. In LTE, this is not observed. Everything is pretty smooth and stable. Considering that WiMAX in the room where it was tested, telephony did not work at all, such tests for LTE instill reasonable optimism. Today, many customers who used to sit on WiMAX have asked for help in reconfiguring their newly activated equipment - so far no negative feedback, our telephony works for all customers.
According to our feelings, QoS is now not included at all. With active downloads at the time of the conversation, although there are no obvious interruptions, as was the case with WiMAX, some artifacts still appear. And the LTE network turned out to be very sensitive to the movement of the router - with the slightest movement or touch, the connection starts to be interrupted.
There are concerns that a situation similar to what happened in the spring of 2009 may arise - the network operates at fairly high speeds, apparently due to the small number of active subscribers. Even with a weak signal level, the network allows you to comfortably work and receive various additional services, such as IP-telephony and video calls.
In connection with the fairly good results of the first tests of IP telephony in the LTE network, I would like to ask Yota a few questions:
1. Will QoS be implemented for different types of traffic or will the principle of network neutrality be preserved?
2. At the moment when Yota launches its own voice services (and they will, there is no reason to doubt this), will similar services of other operators be deliberately blocked?
3. What is the current load on the network - is it more or less than the one that was in WiMAX?
PS For users who connect via LTE routers, we expect to make a separate tariff plan with a free connection of a two-channel number in the code (495) or (499). And now we are ready to provide everyone with test credentials to test IP telephony services on the Yota network.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/143670/
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