Infovista reveals new user experience testing solutions

Infovista, the global enabler in network lifecycle automation (NLA), has announced new user experience testing solutions for the most resource intensive – and latency sensitive – OTT applications and interactive 5G services.

Innovatively combining various generic testing techniques, sophisticated real live service traffic pattern emulations and machine learning (ML) algorithms, Infovista enables mobile operators to fully test not only their networks, but also the user experience of any native or OTT applications and services running over them.

The Infovista user experience testing portfolio includes sQLEAR, Infovista’s VoLTE and VoNR voice quality testing solution, and new generic testing solutions for OTT voice services, OTT video streaming, and interactive services including e-gaming, remote drone control and video conferencing.

Operators can now test the user experience of high bandwidth, low latency 5G services such as e-gaming using Infovista’s new generic pattern profiling. By emulating the traffic patterns of highly interactive and intensive services, such as the First-Person Shooter (FPS) game genre (e.g. Counter-Strike), Infovista’s testing solutions validate if the network can deliver a great user experience for subscribers using this type of service. Real-time emulation of traffic based on adaptable network conditions enables gaming KPI measurements to be mapped to user experience scores on the service’s interactivity quality. This allows operators to determine both network readiness and any potential improvement actions needed to improve the end user experience.

Infovista’s new generic framework for OTT media testing solves the key challenge with testing OTT media today, namely that parameters such as how to login, or the layout and behavior of the application can change without any notice, and can differ between devices, platforms, countries and even networks. By providing user interface (UI) automation when setting up the tests, while the test methodology and KPIs remain generic, Infovista enables operators to test the generic framework regardless of what OTT media application/service is being used. This saves operators time when testing a multitude of OTT media applications and allows them to quickly test any new application with consistency and confidence.

Infovista now enables operators to generically test OTT voice and video streaming across the large variety of applications, codecs and clients by using a generic client to mimic the behavior of an OTT voice client (e.g. WhatsApp) and/or video streaming client (e.g. video on demand category like Netflix). Infovista’s voice quality ML-based predictor, sQLEAR, uses a generic OTT voice client design based on one of the most commonly used OTT voice apps, WhatsApp. This significantly reduces both cost and time to market of new OTT voice services.

Dr. Irina Cotanis, Technology Director, Network Testing at Infovista explains how using Infovista’s generic testing techniques enables operators to efficiently test user experience for all OTT apps running over their network, while reserving app specific testing for only those apps or services identified as requiring special care and attention:

“If we look at the variety and diversity of popular OTT applications, we can see it is impossible to test them all. The most eloquent example is the most demanding and popular 5G service, mobile cloud gaming, for which the multitude and variety of game genres make it clear that there is no point even trying to optimize your network for all the different types of games. Thanks to the multitude of OTT apps and the ever-expanding range of devices, it’s simply not practical or financially viable to test every device, every OTT app and every interactive service. Instead, by testing the network against the key parameters of the most demanding and/or most commonly used OTT application/service, we can give operators the confidence they need to not just deliver a network capable of supporting less intensive and/or less common OTT apps and services, but make user experiences promises, safe in the knowledge that their network will deliver,” said Dr. Cotanis.