3G Operator 3 UK's 3’s Video Edges Ahead of BBC Internet

Europe : As England’s World Cup campaign ended in misery last Saturday, masochistic mobile users unable to watch the match on television were desperately downloading video streams of the penalty shoot-out that consigned the England team to another four trophy-less years.

For the first time, Argogroup, the mobile data services testing company - which has been undertaking testing of the World Cup data services provided by the five British mobile operators during every England game - compared the quality of operators’ mobile streaming output using Monitor Master, its award-winning quality management platform. The company compared downloaded video clips from 3 UK and T Mobile in addition to the streaming service made available by the BBC over the public Internet.

While delivery times of the penalty shoot-out were comparable (at around 10 minutes or so), the quality was different. The tests showed that, for this particular content, an ADSL broadband connection and 3 UK’s 3G service provided a similar quality of content, with 3’s delivery possibly edging the contest within the limits of experimental error. 3 UK’s video quality was also superior to the T Mobile service where users found it very difficult to see the ball, even when it was stationary on the penalty spot.

But despite this, neither the ADSL broadband service nor 3’s mobile data service could be said to have reached dizzying heights: both suffered from jerkiness and blur.

“These clips were adequate at best,” said David Frodsham, Argogroup’s CEO. “And while the BBC stream was free, it costs about £2 per MB to download the video over 3’s network.”

Argogroup used some new technology recently made available in Monitor Master to score the quality of service of the video clips automatically. This uses complex mathematics to produce a Mean Opinion Score (MOS) of quality, to get as close as possible to what a human would say after viewing the clip. The MOS is expressed as a single number in the range 1 to 5, where 1 is lowest perceived quality, and 5 is the highest perceived quality.

Both 3’s service and the BBC’s stream scored 3.1-3.2 on this measure, meaning they are only just acceptable, even before they are delivered over a network or viewed on a handset. According to Frodsham, a misfiring network could reduce the MOS score significantly, perhaps by as much as 20 per cent again. “And if an operator hasn’t ensured the content works on particular handsets, the score will fall even further.”

For the first time, with Monitor Master, operators can measure the quality of video services from a genuine end user perspective and can take the necessary steps to make improvements and earn more revenue.

Frodsham concluded, "We have been very pleased to see improvements made by many of the services under study during the tournament. We feel they demonstrate that operators are ultimately motivated to improve the quality of their users' experience and the benefits of a pre-emptive approach to ensuring quality."

Argogroup partnered with Genista, a leading provider of Perceptual Quality Management Solutions to incorporate video measurement technology in Monitor Master.

The tests were the fifth and last in a series conducted by Argogroup during every England game at the World Cup. The tests took place between 4.00pm and 7.00pm on Saturday 1 July using a variety of phones from different manufacturers.

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